
SF Bay Bridge + 25,000 algorithmically controlled LEDs - evo_9
http://www.extremetech.com/extreme/146576-san-francisco-bay-bridge-25000-algorithmically-controlled-leds-the-largest-light-show-on-earth
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njudah
Similar large scale public art projects have had significant economic impacts
for their host cities; the Gates project in NYC (which was up for only 2
weeks, compared to 2 years for the Bay Lights), generated $254m in economic
impact.

[http://www.nyc.gov/portal/site/nycgov/menuitem.c0935b9a57bb4...](http://www.nyc.gov/portal/site/nycgov/menuitem.c0935b9a57bb4ef3daf2f1c701c789a0/index.jsp?pageID=mayor_press_release&catID=1194&doc_name=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.nyc.gov%2Fhtml%2Fom%2Fhtml%2F2005a%2Fpr078-05.html&cc=unused1978&rc=1194&ndi=1)

Please consider supporting Bay Lights - its an amazing project .

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hnriot
Cisco must be happy about this. It's got to be the largest real world
rendering of their logo anywhere!

This looks beautiful, going on the video. Its similar to light shows in other
world class cities (Like in London, and the Eiffel Towel in Paris)

The ultimate screensaver!

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micampe
Extremetech, please remove Onswipe, its only effect is slowing down loading
when it's less appropriate.

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hnriot
ditto for every site that uses that piece of junk. Onswipe has to be the
_worst_ thing to happen to the web in years.

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rdl
It's at least not as bad on an iPad 4 as it was on an iPad 1; it doesn't crash
Safari immediately.

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PanMan
It still crashes my (still existing) iPad 1.

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sakopov
> [...] only $11,000 will be needed to power the display per year. That might
> sound like a lot of money, but an estimated increase of $97 million dollars
> in local business will probably change your mind.

$97 million increase from lights on a bridge?

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bunderbunder
Yeah, of course. Because of lights on a bridge, tens - maybe even HUNDREDS -
of thousands of tourists are going to flock to the city over the course of the
year.

What's so hard to believe about that?

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ChrisNorstrom
But aren't all those tourists bringing in $97 million dollars just taking $97
million out of their local economies? People don't just pull out more money
from their ass when something new gets built, they have to take money away
from another spending habit to re-allocate it for the new one.

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pavel_lishin
> But aren't all those tourists bringing in $97 million dollars just taking
> $97 million out of their local economies?

I don't think that local San Francisco businesses will be crying over someone
spending $20 in SF vs. spending $20 in Podunk, Tx.

Also, it doesn't necessarily get pulled out of their local economies. The
money I pay to AT&T, github, etc. isn't exactly powering local businesses.

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cdjarrell
Would be cool if they showed how much traffic was on the bridge, going across
the bridge, or if there was an accident by flashing bright to those
approaching the bridge so they could avoid it

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CanSpice
The cynic in me says this will get co-opted by advertising in a wink. Imagine
the Nike swoosh floating across the Bay Bridge.

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toufka
The artist has 100% control for the first 2(?) years (and he has been
vehemently anti-advertising - there have been numerous offers already). It
will need to be reevaluated in 5 years when the bridge needs to be painted -
as the lights will interfere with a new paint-job.

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nathanstitt
Does any hardware hackers out there have a source for the large scale
switching boards that are at least semi-affordable?

I'd like to tinker with switching on/off few hundred leds at a time but
haven't found a source for a board yet. Bonus points if it'll power RGB
colored ones.

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bwilliams18
As a lighting designer my first thought was exactly the same, this is great,
but how are you controlling it?

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nathanstitt
I image it's similar to the technology they use for those annoying huge LED
billboards. I've investigated the driver boards used on those, but they are
several thousand dollars.

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jmartini
"but an estimated increase of $97 million dollars in local business will
probably change your mind."

Curious to know how they calculated that number.

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bunderbunder
SELECT impressive_number FROM out_of_thin_air;

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goong
Exactly, although you need a function to make the number look precise. (ex.
$97 million but NOT $100 million)

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bunderbunder
True enough.

It'd be very interesting to collect a large pile of estimates like these and
see if they come even close to following Benford's Law[1].

1: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benfords_law>

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finnh
I would imagine that it's close to the inverse - a big pile of numbers that
start with 9, and many many fewer that start with 1.

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joejohnson
Why does everything in SF stop at midnight? This city is lame.

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hnriot
Because people go to sleep so they can get up and invent the future.

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gtr32x
I'm really surprised and impressed that with such an installment only $11000
is needed to power it per year. LED is such an impressive piece of tech.

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dromidas
Ha ha whats funny is I thought the article said it would cost 8 MILLION
DOLLARS to put some stupid cosmetic lights on a bridge.

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thinker
I see they are on Causes but perhaps also using Kickstarter would help make up
the remaining funding.

