Certain Buddhist monks (see link) painstakingly piece together wonderfully intricate paintings out of colored sand, one particle at a time. The time taken to create them, coupled with the ease with which they are subsequently destroyed, by wind and people walking on them, are presumably important in some kind of Zen way.
Kids at seaside resorts spend minutes, if not hours, creating sand pictures inside bottles, which the tourist shop then proceeds to sell to them as souvenirs of their time spent, well, making sand pictures inside bottles.
So, in the spirit of applying modern technology to every aspect of modern life, whether it be meditation or vacation, enter the sand matrix printer. Using technology I don't fully understand, but I am sure is feasible if someone will give me a grant to build one, this large format printer will take standard computer format images and render them in colored grains of sand.
Rendered pictures may then be preserved, if printed on a glue base, or left out on the street for passersby to scuff and scatter, as karmically desired.
Of course, those Buddhist monks may still find it more satisfying to put their pictures together one grain at a time, but we're not going to let spiritual concerns get in the way of progress, are we? And they can always use our sand "prints" as a pattern.
[It is entirely possible that our competitors will accuse us of cheating, by using that dot matrix to paint plain pieces of sand. But we could do that with a regular printer, so it's not worthy of discussion here.]-- DrCurry, Jan 06 2004 (??) Buddhist Sand Painting http://www.ci.fulle...m/sand-painting.jpgA-a-a-CHOO! [DrCurry, Oct 04 2004, last modified Oct 05 2004] Zen Copier http://www.halfbake...m/idea/Zen_20copierAlong your line of thought. [Overpanic, Oct 04 2004, last modified Oct 05 2004] Kung Pow: Enter the fist http://www.kungpowm...com/swf/KPmain.htmlBetty was a zen-like bad guy in this spoof [RayfordSteele, Oct 04 2004, last modified Oct 06 2004] SandPrinter http://www.taomc.co...nes/stratograph.htmthis is similar to the sand in the bottles idea. [Novysan, Oct 04 2004, last modified Oct 06 2004] CNC Sand Printer at SIGGRAPH 2004 http://www.neosurre...m/sand_printer.htmlonly one color so far, but more on the way! [Novysan, Oct 04 2004, last modified Oct 05 2004] MMmMm -- zen flavored sand ... Gets my bun, Doctor!-- Letsbuildafort, Jan 06 2004 his middle name is Betty btw.-- po, Jan 06 2004 Letsbuildabettafort? Or Letsbuildabettyford?-- DrCurry, Jan 06 2004 who are these competitors exactly? And who ever heard of a buddhist monk in a hurry? +-- theircompetitor, Jan 06 2004 DrBettyCurry.-- po, Jan 06 2004 po: you're confusing me with my grandmother, I think. (Her name is Betty anyway; I got my middle name from a great uncle.)-- DrCurry, Jan 06 2004 tsuka: I'm going to carefully answer ???-- theircompetitor, Jan 06 2004 & Kepple was your aunt?-- po, Jan 06 2004 sorry, I was missing a punctuation.
My comment above -- ??? -- meant what do you mean by Phaedrus? Is he the Buddhist monk in a hurry or is there some fine philosophical point that I'm missing?-- theircompetitor, Jan 06 2004 A gap in my otherwise excellent education. I thought you were referring to Socrates' lover.-- theircompetitor, Jan 06 2004 I prefer the art of Zen and Road Racing ... tough indeed ... Bettybebuildingabettafort. HA!
And I think I had this pretty well predicted in my fisrt anno on "Zen Copier" ... just call me Letsbuildanostradamus.-- Letsbuildafort, Jan 06 2004 Is there a "holdthefort"? <vbg>-- theircompetitor, Jan 06 2004 Like fort-waiting? ... I'll have to putcha on hold.-- Letsbuildafort, Jan 06 2004 tsuka: don't worry, I got the reference.-- DrCurry, Jan 06 2004 If you wanted to print one to take with you, would that be a Betty page ?-- normzone, Jan 06 2004 Similarly baked? See the SandPrinter link. He calls it a Stratograph. His whole site is rather amazing...-- Novysan, Jan 06 2004 wow for the SandPrinter link-- theircompetitor, Jan 06 2004 That IS pretty sweet.-- Letsbuildafort, Jan 06 2004 I'm sorry. It's a great idea, but I have to withold my vote - it just seems like cheating. Although, the Buddhists do use prayer wheels...-- Detly, Jan 06 2004 Would this use Turtle Graphics? Cool! Good for 10-year olds, not so good for its intended audience.-- phundug, May 02 2004 I also understood what [tsuka] meant. <oozes smugness>-- spacemoggy, May 02 2004 Anything Buddhists do we can do better...-- Pernicious Wiles, May 02 2004 On reading this, I imagined a zambonioid device which would crawl slowly over the parking lot, beach, path etc. early in the morning. A large reservoir of plain sand is attached. Mechanised spouts move back and forth in the wake of the machine, laying down trails of sand according to a program. The result: complex line drawing sand artworks greet early risers. Sea serpents fighting dolphins, mermen, giant squids etc. Sand labyrinths could be printed for kids to run thru. Over the day wind and wear blur them. In thr morning, a new sand artwork is created. The sand zamboni just interprets a line drawing done on a computer.
Something analogous could be done on the beach at low tide, using sand slightly darker than the rest of the beach.-- bungston, May 03 2004 BAKED AT LAST!! I knew someone would get around to it. I talked awhile with one of the team of creators. He was thrilled there were others thinking about this idea as well. Link should work now. Note: These are my photos of the event. nEO-sURREALIST sYSTEMS has nothing to do with the construction of this device (alas!)-- Novysan, Aug 12 2004 Novysan: thanks for the links! Though I think the technology has a little way to go before it puts the Buddhists out of business.-- DrCurry, Aug 15 2004 Churn, and bun. I just had this idea (without the buddhist bit).-- Ling, Oct 05 2006 I don't think the Buddhists will go for it. It misses the whole point of a) the meditative facet of creating a sand picture and b) the impermance of it all. . . On the other hand, the sand printer is way cool.-- esperance, Oct 05 2006 I thought this was going to be about zen rock gardens and some sort of dot-matrix-type raking mechanism. I was interested. But this idea is more fun and likely more colourful. "What is she sound of a bun baking?"-- LED Prism, Oct 06 2006 I dunno, "Eeeeek"?-- jurist, Oct 06 2006 random, halfbakery