If you wrap the whole tickettape display in something like a black stocking (legging) you will get much better contrast especially for filming where the bright leds clip the image sensor.
As a big word nerd I'm curious about the name "tickertape display" as it seems to be a blending of two things.
Historically, "ticker tape" is what came out of telegraph printers. These printers were later replaced by "ticker displays" that were notable for not using paper tape.
Later still, when added to TV broadcasts (the text on many news channels running along the bottom of the screen) they are called simply "tickers."
I guess the long view from our present time has blurred these names together in popular usage?
My only thoughts after reading this: really cool (although I wish I had a use case to justify copying it) but how does one obtain a domain name like josh.com for a personal blog?
This is Josh levine's site, the guy behind Island; he basically started electronic trading. He used to use this site to stream himself trading in the 90s/00s. Crazy seeing it on hn, I'm just finishing a book he was featured in
I wish I'd known, back in the 90s, that I didn't actually need DNS hosting arranged in order to register domain names. The form asked for DNS server names and I assumed that my registrations would have been rejected because somebody would be checking to see if the DNS servers were actually authoritative for the domain.
At the time I was getting dialup service from a small regional ISP.
One day I asked them if I could use my own domain name and they happily offered to host the dns records, make my dialup IP static, and set records for www,mx, etc. All for a small one time setup fee which I gladly paid.
I had previously been given an old sun box which I then setup with a modem on a dedicated phone line (with auto-redial) and suddenly I had my own internet site in my apt!
If you're going large and outdoors, you might consider "dumb" LED modules. They are available in 1/4 duty (or higher) refresh rates that make them much brighter than the WS2812 devices, and are easier to wire up. You do need a smarter controller since each pixel doesn't have it's own IC, but it scales well and is fairly inexpensive.
A popular size is "P10", or 10mm pitch where each LED is 10mm apart, and they come in modules that are 16 LEDS high X 32 LEDS wide. Search Aliexpress or similar for "P10 outdoor".
For controlling them, there are commercial controllers on Aliexpress (Generally, search "HUB75 controller") or open source options that require something with a little "oomph", like a BeagleBone or Propeller.
