Funds can be generated for your community by means of this huge commercial event. This idea comes from another halfbaker. I tried to find it but I think it might have slipped into the bakehouse refuse bin. He wanted to have people at a stadium hold up colours to make a computer readout but there is a logistics problem involved for a stadium. However through the wonderment of resurrection perhaps if the 1.44 million people needed actually assembled on a nice flat area somewhere the idea might deserve a bun or two. What would be needed is an area 800 metres x 600 metres. (a smaller area could be used with a loss in image detail) This area provides for 3 people to stand in a square metre space Now each person would have a colour board that was supplied by the organisers and made quite cheaply out of plastic and carboard. One third of the people have the colour cyan one third magenta and one third yellow. The boards work like a scroll where you can scroll your particular colour from 0 to 100%. Printed markings will enable you to do this to the desired setting. The output is seen (from somewhere between outer space and a hot air balloon) when at a given time sequence each person holds his set "colour" above his /her head then resets it for the next "shot". Some more detail is that each person would wear all white clothing and carry a supply of a white ground covering (I suggest flour) The commercial attraction would be that an image could be formed having the detail you would expect from a computer screen (800x600) This would enable clear company logos to be formed as well as images of people for instance. There would be a charge for this service of course so that funds could be fed back to the participating groups ie schools , scouts etc. I estimate that with good organisation an image could be formed every minute so with two "shifts" in a day quite a lot of finances for the project could be generated-- tasman, Jul 21 2004 Somewhat more ambitious signaling system http://www.halfbake...ctic_20Morse_20Code [theircompetitor, Oct 04 2004, last modified Oct 05 2004] People as pixels http://www.typotheq...s/pixel_people.html [tasman, Oct 04 2004, last modified Oct 05 2004] //And then what?// The winner gets to do it. The organisation being in the hands of some local "group" on the direction of some internationally assigned HBer perhaps-- tasman, Jul 21 2004 The idea could be commercialised somewhat by including company logos in the "big screen" display. The information would be contained in the program for each participant. The people would not know their sequence before the event it being pre-placed on each "square" prior to the event. A public address system would instruct all participants when to set their colour ie "Set your boards at # 45 now" When loading the people representing the three colours on each square, a strict marshalling procedure would be adopted to avoid mayhem of the 1.44 million people. Participants would be advised their instructions by email and would have to bring their own refreshments to take "on site".-- tasman, Jul 21 2004 I still think this is one of the better ideas I have come up with. I have only come up with two however.-- tasman, Jul 22 2004 Am I the only one imagining some malicious person hacking the system and sending out pixel data for an 800x600 meter picture of Goatse?-- Freefall, Jul 22 2004 Perhaps we will have to virus check the image data then-- tasman, Jul 22 2004 Is your name a clue as to your whereabouts in the world?-- Gulherme, Jul 23 2004 For those HBers who are unsure of the physics of light transmission, illumination, colours, and the human eye, please refer to good scientific information on the subjects.-- tasman, Jul 24 2004 As long as you don't try and rewrite the laws of physics your posts are welcome-- tasman, Jul 25 2004 You don't have any comment to make about my dots-on-mousepad experiment, [tasman]?-- benjamin, Jul 25 2004 No ben I don't-- tasman, Jul 25 2004 Agree with [contracts]. They already do this during large sporting events (Olympics, FIFA world cup). Particularly during opening/ closing ceremonies.-- lcllam2, Jul 25 2004 Yes to some degree (see link) but not to this size and only with fixed colours. This idea would possibly cover a ground area of more than six complete stadiums not just the grandstand area of one. Furthermore any colour could be generated not just the pre-programed ones the "holders" had. That means that multiple images could be formed on a fixed signal. Large corporations could have their logo formed as could people have an image of their face formed at a price. A "script" would be written for each participant (ie they have to set their colour between 0 and 100% ) and this could change every minute for instance. Funds would be generated because of the commercial component and could be fed back to participating organisations ie schools , scouts etc.-- tasman, Jul 26 2004 //As long as you don't try and rewrite the laws of physics your posts are welcome//Which, presumably, is why [benjamin]'s links to his evidence have mysteriously disappeared.[benjamin]: Excellent experiment.-- angel, Jul 26 2004 Perhaps [benjamin] would like to present his ideas on his own submission-- tasman, Jul 26 2004 random, halfbakery