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.

Good Thing It's Not in Boston

Or the police would've locked down the city already.

Re:Good Thing It's Not in Boston

Lady: Hey, what are you doing!
Officer: We believe this may be an improvised explosive device so it's being removed using a controlled explosion.
Lady: BUT THAT'S MY HOUSE!!!
Officer: Ok you heard her boys, book her, she admitted to being the terrorist.

Re:Good Thing It's Not in Boston

Popele were just acting rashionally when they saw a st4range device on important imfrasturcture.

Yeah, I have a hard time keeping away from the eggnog, too.

Re:Good Thing It's Not in Boston

rashionally

I doubt this was on purpose, but it is an outstanding word. I propose that it means, "perfectly rational, if you are crazy."

Global warming

What's the point to banning some incandescent light bulbs if this bullshit is allowed?

Re:Global warming

unless there's something I missed

There is.

rj

Re:Global warming

You know, the the celebration Jesus's birthday?

Interestingly enough there is no record of when Jesus was born. One of the original dates that early Christians believed was March 25th, which also corresponded with the date he was believed to have been crucified. Early Christians also did not celebrate the birth of Jesus because they believed saints didn't celebrate their births. The Christian church however has never been one to pass up an opportunity to subsume a competing religions holidays, and late December was a time when almost all cultures celebrated some kind of festival (Yule, Saturnalia, Sol Invictus, etc.). It made it much easier to convert people to Christianity if they got to keep most of their old holidays (see also Easter, corresponding to the Summer Solstice and many cultures fertility holidays [ever wonder about easter eggs?]).

Re:Global warming

Um, not to be pedantic, but Easter is near the Spring equinox, not the Summer solstice.

Re:Global warming

Um, not to be pedantic, but Easter is near the Spring equinox, not the Summer solstice.

I stand corrected. However, the point still remains that Easter was used to replace pre-existing pagan fertility holidays.

Re:Global warming

Easter retains its Pagan origins, being celebrated on the first Sunday following the first full moon following the vernal equinox.

Re:Global warming

Uh, the New Testament wasn't authored in Hebrew - it was originally written in Greek, which was the common language of the day (owing to Alexandar the Great's March across most of Western Europe/Asia).

What you are probably getting confused over is the fact that Matthew quotes from Isaiah - which was written in Hebrew originally. Matthew translated it when he quoted it (since he was writing in Greek - not that he was the first to translate the Hebrew bible to Greek).

The word used in Isaiah is probably best translated as young maiden. In using it to refer to the virgin birth Matthew translates it to Greek as virgin to go along with the rest of his account. It is obviously a more recent phenomenon than Isaiah, but it dates back to the first century - it isn't like this was a mistranslation from the middle ages. Matthew's intention of communicating that Mary was a virgin is very clear from the lengthy account of the whole story.

Now, if you think Matthew was full of it I suppose that is something else, but this isn't some invention of modern translators or anything like that.

How about an analogy (since this is /.): The US Supreme Court issues a ruling in English based upon some treaty written in French. It turns out that the supreme court choose to use a less-common translation of a French phrase in the treaty as part of its ruling, and quotes it in English. In the USA the only binding law would be the Supreme Court's ruling, based on the alternate translation from French. The Supreme Court's ruling isn't really a translation-error per se since it is also an original creative work, and the Supreme Court's intention wasn't to just translate the treaty, but it chose to quote a part of it in English to further some larger purpose. You couldn't look at the ruling 100 years later and say that the Supreme Court didn't mean what they said because the translation of a line of French was debatable - the Supreme Court clearly meant what they said in the bulk of their ruling, and the translation was in support of the larger work. Now, you could choose to disagree with the Supreme Court, and that is neither here nor there.

So, while Isaiah is likely to have meant "young maiden" it doesn't really change the fact that Matthew was trying to communicate "virgin". And if you really are just interested in historicity then you'd probably tend to put more stock in a document written after Jesus's birth than 600 years before it when trying to figure out what happened.

Re:Global warming QWZX

Canada.

Re:Global warming

What's the point to banning some incandescent light bulbs if this bullshit is allowed?

Shut up. This has been a year to end all years. We've been bullied into accepting bullshit laws left, right and center, we've seen our countrymen lose their lives in a neverending bullshit war, and the holiday season is the one time of year when we get to let our hair down and have fun without petty moaning getting in the way.

Yes, it's garish, and yes it's a "waste of energy", but you know what? I feel like getting up and going to work every day just to fall into bed and do it all over again tomorrow is a waste of energy, too, and I look forward to the fun and silliness of the holiday season, and things like this add to the fun. Pretty much everything else fun has been legislated to death, if we start legislating Christmas then we might as well give up the fight altogether and become mindless automatons retiring to our alcoves for 8 hours 'recharge' in between 365 days of work.

So 90's

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.

Re:So 90's

It can be done a lot more tastefully.

Yeah, they could get about a million red, green, and blue lights and string them up in a grid, with a computer to control each light individually instead of entire strands. Then they could port Firefox into the code that controls the lights and just show the damn Trans Siberian Orchestra house video on it.

Re:So 90's

When I first read your comment, I though you were just one of those people that just like to complain. Then I saw the video, and had to completely agree with you. The display shows little to no creativity, and seem to be just a "I bought more lights" display. We used to have a house here in Santa Rosa, Ca that had a big display every year. It had a tenth of the lights, and was dramatically more impressive. It had spinning carousels, elves making toys, and various other animated displays. Buying more lights isn't impressive. Show me something I haven't seen before if you want to impress me.

All I can say is...

Where's my BB Gun? I'm HOPING to put someones eye out.

Cease & desists and/or lawsuits in 3.. 2.. 1..

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 (MI) has some nice lights

Rochester Michigan has a really nice light display setup on all of the stores on Main St. Here's a link [ledgenlighting.com] 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.

Argh...

Most annoying neighbor ever? I'd be looking into cutting their power lines after the first evening. But I'm a bit of a depressed grinch.

Amazing dedication, big fat wallet?

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.

Story time kids

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...

Awesome

Of course, it's all fun and games until the bus of epileptic kids drives by.

You think that's bad?

If enough houses got together, they could make a great set of fake runway lights for aircraft.

You too can do this

Computer controlled, fully programmable.
Lite-o-rama [lightorama.com]

If you're insane and anal enough to do it right. Some of the displays are pretty impressive [lightorama02.com], though. In an over the top, freaky, kind of way.

Armed with technical knowledge....

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

..and lack social skills and good taste which others are armed with.

Bizare Christmas Decorations

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

Jesus is the "reason for the season"?

I couldn't help but notice the huge, annoying, "Jesus is the reason for the season" in those Xmas lights. Maybe if the architect did as much research into history as he did lighting, he might realize that Christmas was appropriated from earlier pagan traditions [bsalert.com] and has very little, if virtually nothing to do with "Jesus". Historians also generally agree (among those that actually think there was a historial Jesus figure) that Jesus was not born on December 25th in the first place. He was more likely born in the Spring or Summer. It's one thing to believe something that's erroneous. It's another to cast it in a hundred thousand lights and broadcast your ignorance to the entire neighborhood. Happy Saturnalia!

Lights? Call me when you get a pair....

Thats not creative at all. its just plain old boring.

Now, THIS [youtube.com] 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!

Ramen

I still prefer the more understated FSM Holiday Display [bsalert.com].

Merry Christmas, Hon'

For pure unadulterated camp, you can't beat the display on the 700 block of 34th Street in Baltimore's neighborhood of Hampden. Each traditional row house is decorated to the owner's own taste and vision, and while they aren't particularly technical, they certainly do make a splash. They've been lighting up that block for so long that realtors feel it's mandatory to warn prospective home buyers that they'll have to light up, too. There's a pretty good sampling here [flickr.com].

Unfortuantely

the energy required will soon surpass the rating of a standard household connection, but thankfully revolutionsing nuclear systems from Toshiba is promising to deliver lots of luminous joy for Christmas to come.

Season?

"Around October, somebody was just walking around my neighborhood, and they told me they really liked our lights and that it really made the season for them," Hansen said. "If I am the one that triggers the season for somebody, then it really makes it worthwhile."

No, you misheard: you triggered the seizures!

I bet this guy drives a Prius and

I bet this guy drives a Prius and talks about reducing his carbon footprint all the time, too. ;-)

Carson Williams

Didn't Carson Williams do this a couple years ago? I saw someone linking to Lightorama, which is the software he used, but I don't see a link to his video. In any case, while it may not have quite as many lights, I feel his Wizards in Winter [youtube.com] performance was a lot better orchestrated.

Orlando?

It'd be more impressive if it wasn't 21C there. Try putting up all those lights in 3 feet of snow.

Some Canadian Examples Set To Music

This one is from Newmarket which is just north of Toronto Ontario:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pXk0wc5qXuo [youtube.com]

This one gained instant fame a year ago. Again it is a house located just north of Toronto:

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-4983931962566123785 [google.com]

Waste of energy and resources

It is just xmas, no need for fancy lights. Thankfully it will be over in another day anyway.

TRIP OUT MAN

I saw something like this, but it wasn't at Christmas. All you need is a little LSD. MUCH scarier though.

are so doomed

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 th eheels of the earlier CFL story

Are they using CFL [slashdot.org] Christmas lights? Oh sorry, don't want to offend the liberals, "holiday lights?"

Oh yeah, these are geeks. The CFL Christma... sorry, "holiday tree" lights are the wrong color temperature and they give the whiney geeks headaches. And you can't dim 'em. Can't have that, planet be damned.

Peace on earth goodwill to men, I wonder how much electricity these displays take? Vain, selfich rich kids. Lets just do away with Christmas altogether.

Sorry, I'm having a really bad day today. I'm trying for funny but shit... troll? flamebait? Offtopic? You're the mod, go ahead, make my day.

-Dirty Hairy

So, Tie a Yellow Ribbon around the Old Oak Tree?

Will IT be visible by Dawn? What will SHE have to say about it?

Lame

This light thing is some other form of penis size competition. Every year, Christmas is more about business and show off and less about its origins.

Disclaimer: I'm not a religious person but I think you don't need to believe in God to admire Jesus work at that time. If he was in our time he would certainly be against the war in Iraq. He was a pacifist, unlike most of his hard line followers.

For those in the SF Bay Area...

... on Eucalyptus Avenue in San Carlos [google.com] 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.

Thanks for nothing, jerk...

Light Pollution [wikipedia.org] International Dark-Sky Association [darksky.org] Starry Night Lights [starrynightlights.com]

Dallas Area

There is a house in Frisco (just north of Dallas) that has been doing this for several years. They have a small site and it gives descriptions, pictures and video. You can see it here [trykoskichristmas.com].

We usually take our daughter to see it every year.

A guy in Utah

There is a guy here in Utah that makes a pretty cool Christmas display with lights timed to music and all that, here are some pics http://www.christmasutah.com/2007_lights.html [christmasutah.com] If you are in the area, it is definitely worth seeing. (Google ads on the bottom, I am not the owner of the website)

Make something that is different

Basicaly it is a bunch of groups of lights that go on and off individually. The first time I saw something like this a few years ago it was impressive. Now it is just another one.

It would be more impressive if he were realy steering each light individualy and thus making his whole house a screen. The real chalange would be to have more then one angle in which it looks great (no just good). This would mean some weeks or months of 3d modelling first to see how it works.

The obvious next step whould be a connection to the Internet, although a repeating message with "Fuck Global Warming" would be also apropriate.

Some other lights here [youtube.com] from 2005 and although in one colour, better then the one now posted

Here [metacafe.com] also something that looks better and is from 2006.
A last one [google.com] is here.

Blink

They typically work in fields such as ... Web development

Got to do something with all those unused "blink" tags...

so i guess the mythbusters WAS right

million lights and it did'nt burn up so far. Myth busted!

Another one

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_vwOCmJyCZk [youtube.com]

But what we really want to know

has it gotten anybody laid?

There's one that goes all out...on Halloween

This is in Miami. The yard has tall palm trees in a row behind a diamond link fence. There is a giant spiderweb between two of them so it spans the front of the yard. A huge spider is on it (the stuff that used to scare me in the old serial reruns like Flash Gordon or vintage Batman--not the Adam West stuff but even older)

Under one of the palm trees: a crashed helicopter mockup, broken rotors and all, and a dazed pilot is RIGHT THERE, stuck on the web.

I would drive there at night with my two daughters, and whenever we are about to pass by, I start clutching my daughter's arm, pretending to be really scared.

Of course my daughters roll their eyes. Some nights we scream together. I wonder if the family that lives there gets a Doppler effect of our mock screams. One particular night, I turned to them and said in all seriousness, We've got to save him!

Re:Linked video

The article mentions several light shows. The one from the video is south of Orlando in Kissimmee, but several of the others are actually in Orlando (or close enough at any rate).

Re:Random Trivia

Talk about 'misread': I thought you wrote, it would be cool to see it in prison.

Re:Random Trivia

I lived there for 20 years and I never heard it called that, as true as it is. Anyway, it makes complete sense to me that such a garish display of lights (not to mention the big fuck you! to the earth) would be in Kissimmee. The only other places I would expect that out of are Las Vegas and Gatlinburg, TN.

Re:Little Baby Jesus, *IMMANUEL* ("God is with us!

My wife, I, and our kids went to a Christmas pageant Saturday night to watch my step mother sing in the choir. We went to candle light service at our own church Christmas Eve. I agree with you whole heartedly. That one service reminds everyone there why we celebrate Christmas. It also reminds you why you go to church on Sundays. We love the candle light service and I know that my kids know why we Christians celebrate Christmas.

I could absolutely care less about the fact that pagan religions celebrate whatever they celebrated during the month of what we now call December. I don't care what pagan or other religions have always celebrated around Christmas. What exactly is the point of that statement? I really don't understand what theorem is proven by the fact that other religions have celebrated something on or about the same day. It reminds me of a quote from the movie Forest Gump. "That is a very lovely story, and you tell it so well."

What is the theorem proven by the fact that Christmas has been commercialized by our capitalist society? Christmas is no longer a celebration of the birth of Jesus Christ because Wal-Mart makes a mint from it? That is excellent proof? Since the gigantic megacorps that make millions or billions from Jesus Christ's birth don't call it Christmas anymore, I say that particular proof is crap. They are now making money from the "Holiday Season" so Christmas has been returned to us and we know exactly why we celebrate it.

If someone doesn't care about Christ, Christians, or Christmas, why do they care if I do? I have never seen a group so hell bent (pun intended) on ruining my holiday, my religion, and my celebrations as atheists. The only thing this group appears to firmly believe in is attempting to tear down my faith.

It's Christmas. I love it. I thank God for the gift he sent us in his only begotten son. I thank God for the opportunity to celebrate it on whatever day we choose to celebrate it. We had a fantastic Christmas full of good cheer, thankfulness, giving, good food, good family, good friends, and worship. If someone else didn't then I am sorry for them. If a person doesn't believe then we pray for them. If you don't believe and don't care, then be quiet. This "holiday" is not about you nor is it for you. Wal-Mart has a "Holiday Celebration" for you instead. Take it or leave it, but stop whining about it.

Incidentally, St. Nicholas [wikipedia.org] was the patron saint of anonymous giving. That is what Santa Claus represents. That's what the whole tradition represents to me. We give to the needy. We give to the Churches who use the money to help the needy. We buy nice things for our children and put it under the tree. They get gifts from St. Nicholas a.k.a. Santa Claus and the folks who helped with that process are emulating the real St. Nicholas in not expecting thanks or gratitude for a kind gesture. Jesus said that a man who marches through the streets loudly proclaiming his tithes are paid has already received his reward. The giving of gifts by Christians is in the tradition of Christ's teachings. Our children may not be needy, but we give to them in the same spirit in the hopes that they will do the same when they are adults. That is: giving to the needy, worshiping God, Jesus Christ our Lord, the Holy Spirit, and passing this tradition along to their own children.

Matthew 6:1-4
But when you give to the needy, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, so that your giving may be in secret. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you.

I'm not inviting posters to attack my faith. I am not attempting to insult anyone of another faith. I believe that most followers of other faiths don't care what I believe and aren't bothered by the fact that I do believe. What I am trying to say is that it IS a Christian holiday and WE DO know why we celebrate it. It is NOT because we all go broke and it DOESN'T MAT