Interesting Uses For a USB LED Screen?

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

[Tubal-Cain]

Matrix screensaver.

pong

[imp7]

A never ending game of pong

Obvious use

[Anonymous Coward]

Put it in your window at home and use it to hollah for girls that pass by.

Here you go

[Anonymous Coward]

porn video => avi to ascii converter => red hot LED action

ascii penis!

[larry bagina]

8=====D

Re:Notification for everything

[Shakrai]

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:Do you really need to ask?

[Shakrai]

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 ;)

Oh I know! First thing to do is...

[madmaxmedia]

...have it display all new comments to this thread.

Only useful for the pointy-haired

[Gothmolly]

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:Notification for everything

[Tubal-Cain]

>:)

I see... an Asteroids-esque space ship during reentry.

What about

[gzipped_tar]

Game of Life?

Re:For kids

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Three words for you

[BobNET]

PC LOAD LETTER

Re:For kids

[ranok]

Yeah, I can imagine the kids' horror when they bring over their friends, and have to explain why their parents are so lame. "Uhhh, what's that on the wall" "Nothing, my dad's just a dork" "Oh" "Come on, let's get out of here"

You could set up a countdown...

[allaunjsilverfox2]

Just pick a random day far in the future, And have it countdown to that day with the words, Only (insert time) until it happens! Then refuse to tell anyone what it means. It should provide interesting conversations at the water cooler.

Keep safe

[Waffle Iron]

Use it as a ticker to scroll the real-time DoHS advisory status:

...ted >> Terrorist Threat Level: Elevated >> Terro...

Stock ticker

[steveo777]

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:Do you really need to ask?

[Anonymous Coward]

I call it spreading the love!

Ebay!

[Linker3000]

Stick it on ebay and with the money you receive go and enjoy the fast food meal of your choice!

Re:Wow

[NekoXP]

Better yet, coca of the month subscription?

Re:Notification for everything

[mpathetiq]

I don't know any Idahoians here in Ohio, so I cannot answer your question. Well, I suppose I could answer "mu". :)

So you say it plays wav files?

[frank_adrian314159]

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

[bytesex]

Have you tried turning it off and on ?

Re:Back car window..

[GhaleonStrife]

"If you're going to ride my ass, at least buy me dinner first!"

Re:Do you really need to ask?

[thePowerOfGrayskull]

Dude, what kind of disease do /you/ have? That's nasty...

Re:Notification for everything

[Kleen13]

"God was my copilot but I crashed in the mountains and had to eat him."

Re:Notification for everything

[Mikya]

What does the second "T" stand for?

Re:Notification for everything

[Hal_Porter]

Unless you plan to put it in your car to give the finger to people honking at you in queue

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.

>:)

Jesus christ it's a .... Oh never mind.

Re:Three words for you

[Anonymous Coward]

What, no LP0 ON FIRE?

Re:Car notifications

[Hognoxious]

There are times when a rear-pointing message board could be extremely useful. Such as:
Your high-beams are on.

My favourite would be: Ever wondered why they're called fog lights, not it's-a-bit-cold-today lights?

A bit long, sadly.

Re:Matrix

[fyngyrz]

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:

• Time since last paycheck
• Time until next paycheck
• Salary graph tracking COL index
• Company stock price
• Current project status (your own little twitter)
• Sharon: Not that I'm asking for a date, but you're totally hot. Just so you know.
• Yes, I'd like a donut, thank you
• Anyone know where the specification has gotten off to?
• Can I bring my cat to work?
• The perfume level today is STIFLING
• Has anyone seen the TPS reports?
• Questions? Please use email so I can timeshift: [e-mail]
• I'm sorry, the specification is frozen.
• Last page hit on the webserver (just "tail" the log and trivially parse it out)
• Next upcoming cron event
• Can I have a Mac, please?
• I hate the toolbar
• I hate the tabs
• I hate... FITB
• Time until 5pm (or quitting, whatever it is)
• Time until lunch, then time until quitting
• Days until vacation
• Decades since you've been laid
• URL of favorite website
• Name of software you think people should try
• Hours until your next date
• # lines of code written today
• # keystrokes today
• Approximate hangover depth
• The Software Priesthood Still Lives
• ...

"XX seconds without thinking about sex."

[dlleigh]

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

[IronChef]

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:Matrix

[interploy]

Fill it with internet memes.

Re:For maximum freakout potential

[__aasqbs9791]

That is a great idea. Certainly more novel than many of the others I've seen. And it gives you an excuse to talk to your computer without sounding crazy. Well, too crazy.

Re:Matrix

[Tubal-Cain]

I can haz Mac, plze?

There. Fixed it for you.

Re:Notification for everything

[weirdcrashingnoises]

looks more like zoidberg with a paper hat, which is of course ridiculous, because he would have eaten it.

Four words for you

[Anonymous Coward]

FEED ME A CAT

http://lists.puremagic.com/pipermail/robotgroup/2008-March/008641.html

Re:Stock ticker

[windsurfer619]

Code for configuration file:
    \
      \
        \

Re:Notification for everything

[Anonymous Coward]

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:Matrix

[SleptThroughClass]

Fill it with internet memes.

In Soviet Russia, all your base haz Mac dancing, RLY.

12:00

[sdsichero]

Just have it blink 12:00 repeatedly.

Re:Matrix

[cbiltcliffe]

tracking the U.S. deficit in real-time

ERROR: Buffer overflow. Integer out of range.

Re:Matrix

[Anonymous Coward]

Fill it with internet memes.

With a row of 5x5 pixel characters, Goatse is going to be limited to '=3OE='

Re:Matrix

[beav007]

I was going to say the same thing about /. dupes...

Re:Notification for everything

[Anonymous Coward]

They aren't tailgating, they're huddling to stay warm.

Re:Matrix

[fractoid]

I seem to recall a forum thread over at gamedev.net which was basically a competition to generate the simplest recognizable goatse ascii. The aftermath was that for months it was a bannable offense to post the following three characters in sequence:
=0=