The Panic Sign

I&#x27;ve heard that the Durst family made an app for changing the lights on One World Trade Center. They guard its distribution pretty tightly, though.<p>I have a fantasy about going on a date at some rooftop bar that has a view of the spire, asking her what her favorite color is, directing her attention to the spire, and making it happen. I suppose I&#x27;d settle for changing the sign on a Portland office building, though ;)

One of the towers at the Adobe headquarters has a sort of semaphore on top that displays coded messages, and spins whenever a plane flies over the building:<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.adobe.com&#x2F;aboutadobe&#x2F;philanthropy&#x2F;sjsemaphore&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.adobe.com&#x2F;aboutadobe&#x2F;philanthropy&#x2F;sjsemaphore&#x2F;</a>

The &quot;Old John Hancock&quot; building in Boston has a similar weather beacon and an accompanying rhyme:<p><pre><code> Steady blue, clear view. Flashing blue, clouds due. Steady red, rain ahead. Flashing red, snow instead. </code></pre> In summer, flashing red means the Red Sox game has been cancelled.

Slightly off-topic: About the weather sign at the beginning; there is a tower in Istanbul that was initially build in 1749 to watch for fire and report with baskets (daytime) and lights (night).<p>Now it is is still in use today as a watch-tower as well as for signaling weather forecast and maritime navigation information to the ships on the Golden Horn at night.<p>source: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Beyazıt_Tower" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Beyazıt_Tower</a>

Really cool idea and hack. Unrelated, I wonder what Panic is going to do to keep up in terms software products. Coda was awesome, but then Sublime Text came along.. And then Atom came along.<p>Panic makes some of the most beautifully designed OS X software, so I hope they release something new and relevant soon.<p>Just spit-balling, but they should make a native OS X application to provision and manage infrastructure (AWS, Google Cloud, Azure, DigitalOcean).

It&#x27;s been like this for at least a year, actually I can&#x27;t remember when they first did this. Could have sworn they already wrote this up sometime before...

Now, it&#x27;s just a matter of automating it:<p><pre><code> curl https:&#x2F;&#x2F;signserver.panic.com:54444&#x2F;set&#x2F;0&#x2F;0&#x2F;0&#x2F;0&#x2F;0&#x2F;0 sleep 1 curl https:&#x2F;&#x2F;signserver.panic.com:54444&#x2F;set&#x2F;255&#x2F;255&#x2F;255&#x2F;255&#x2F;255&#x2F;255 sleep 1 </code></pre> If I was there to check IRL, I would probably like the sign to spell SOS using morse.<p>It&#x27;s probably a good idea to add a queue and a minimum time for an specific configuration to run, although, that probably defeats the purpose.

This is awesome! My father makes signs, he&#x27;d love to read this article.<p>I grew up helping him install signs. It&#x27;s a pretty neat thing to be involved in.<p>This is also great advertising for Panic ;)

They mention they Standard Plaza weather beacon at the beginning of the story -- we actually have one here in SF! The lights at the top of the south tower at One Rincon Hill turn red for warmer, blue for colder, green for rain, and amber for no change expected. Something fun to look for as you come west across the Bay Bridge.

I wonder how many people who are nowhere near SW Portland right now are fucking with their sign.

Quite nice: would be nice to have a camera focused on the sign so you could change it and see it update even if you&#x27;re not on the corner.

Posted the other day: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;item?id=11680369" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;item?id=11680369</a><p>No traction then, weird. Didn&#x27;t know HN would accept dups within days.