Domain: komar.org
Stories and comments across the archive that link to komar.org.
Comments · 430
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Re:A bit more info and obvious first application
Not to break your little heart, but...
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Re:Fool me once, shame on you, ...My wife will be home in a few minutes - watch the garage door go up and all my kids pile out. I'll go wave to the webcam for you too
... but hey, it could be even even better simulation this year ... i.e. is it a trick or a treat?!? ;-)P.S. 7680x4320 video @ 60-Hz would be pretty awesome - if someone knows the HNK guys, let 'em know I'd be happy to be a beta tester for 'em.
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A bit more info and obvious first applicationThere's a little more info on the Open House 2005 site (where it was demo'd) that includes a graphic and mentions that it "employs a 22.2 channel 3D loudspeaker arrangement to realize excellent sound field reproduction and a wide listening range"
... whatever 22.2 is, it sure sounds like a lotta speakers. EETimes didn't say when this would be actually available to end-users, but PCWorld wrote on June 16th "... the NHK says its system is unlikely to be commercialized until sometime in the next decade" so it will be a while.As with many new technologies, the p0rn industry will probably be the first to deploy this 33,177,600 pixel technology. Boy, I feel a bit inadaquate as my halloween webcam (goes offline Saturday night) only has 337,920 pixels (704x480) - I guess size matters, eh?
;-) -
Re:I don't know which is more ridiculous...
I agree with parent - what a load of crap from the RIAA. Video is becoming more and more mainstream, with the average consumer having access via traditional video camera's, webcams, and even phone's. And if I buy the recording device and shoot the video footage, don't I "own" it anyway. Heck, does this mean that I can't do my halloween webcam next year unless I have "permission" from the RIAA?
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Re:HE'S BACK!Yea, turned out that the fuse popped
... so thanx to some rolled up tin foil FRANKENSTEIN IS ALIVE!I'll find a replacement fuse tomorrow.
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Internet Killed Frankenstein tonightFrankenstein's fan motor died around 1830 MST tonight on the halloween webcam and Frankenstein will no longer inflate
... my guess is that the duty-cycle wasn't rated for thousands of off/on's. The 7,000+ lights are still controllable (X10 super sockets are buzzing though) and trick-or-treaters are waving to the webcam ... but 'ol Frank is R.I.P.I suspect this will be modded down into oblivion, but I wanted to pay my respects to Frankenstein on Slashdot.
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Complete article on a single pageHere's the 5 page article on a single "printer-friendly" page which makes for easier reading. Decent re-hash of stuff that has been well known.
BTW, the funniest Adsense I saw was on the Hulk'in Lunar Eclipse page where ads were offering Lunar Real Estate for Sale - turns out some company sells "deeds" for land on the moon
... ;-) -
Why no mention of the Google Search Appliance?Submitter (and the article) talks about merging Google Desktop Search with IBM's Omnifind product. Since it sounds like the purpose of this is to look inside the firewall/enterprise, I'm really surprised that the Google Search Appliance wasn't mentioned. Wouldn't this be the logical product to internally spider a Corporate network and provide Search Engine Services? And since it was not mentioned, does this suggest some shortcomings with the GSA (which Google released a few years ago, but hasn't seemed to have done well)
... or is this announcement a way for Google and IBM to buddy-up to each other?X10 Halloween Webcam is online - is it a "Trick" or a "Treat"
... ;-) -
Re:What about Halloween in REAL space?
That was a pretty funny (and argueably insightful) post - LOL. The Hulk is real
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Re:Zombies ARE Dead
I like that link in the parent, it seems komar are ready for us but will they survive
http://www.komar.org/cgi-bin/halloween_webcam :) -
Re:What about Halloween in REAL space?I'd like to see what you all are doing in REAL life for Halloween
... but what cool stuff are you geeks making for youselves?Does the halloween webcam qualify as cool/geeky? Turn 7,000+ lights on and off via the web, plus inflate/deflate Frankenstein
... and watch it all on a webcam.We have a ton of kids in the neighborhood, and needless to say, my house is pretty popular, so it's fun having 'em all show up the actual night of Halloween, I have "HULK SMASH" audio playing really loud. So when the kids come by, I ask the smallest (and scaredest one) kid to tell the Hulk to be "Shut Up". It requires a little prodding, but eventually they will say "Be Quiet Hulk"
... and I, of course, hit the OFF button on my wireless X10 remote in my pocket and 'lo and behold, the Hulk is quiet ... since the speaker's power is toggled off. Always get a great response and that kid feels pretty good after that! ;-) -
Zombies ARE Dead
As George Romero showed in Dawn of the Dead zombies are dead
... but they keep coming back to life. Kinda like the inflateable Frankenstein that web surfers keep trying to kill. -
Hot Intel chips are big contributorI think "crisis" is a bit sensational, but yea, power is a concern and it ain't getting any cheaper. This is certainly not helped by the power consuming (and heat generating) hot chips from Intel. Note that you have to pay for that "twice" since for every BTU they consume in electricity, you have to cool it in a data center. Ironically, Part 1 does not even talk about how the CPU itself is a big issue here
... maybe they'll cover it in the rest of the series. Speaking of which, wouldn't it be better for stuff like this to wait until the series is over before posting on Slashdot?P.S. The submitter has a nice fishing web site and is holding about a 12" trout on his main page. Nice catch
... but I'd recommend he go on a fishing charter in Seward Alaska if he wants to catch some mongo fish. This trip was a major slayfest and my brother was Captain Crudd who knows how to fish with a beer in his hand. -
Hot Intel chips are big contributorI think "crisis" is a bit sensational, but yea, power is a concern and it ain't getting any cheaper. This is certainly not helped by the power consuming (and heat generating) hot chips from Intel. Note that you have to pay for that "twice" since for every BTU they consume in electricity, you have to cool it in a data center. Ironically, Part 1 does not even talk about how the CPU itself is a big issue here
... maybe they'll cover it in the rest of the series. Speaking of which, wouldn't it be better for stuff like this to wait until the series is over before posting on Slashdot?P.S. The submitter has a nice fishing web site and is holding about a 12" trout on his main page. Nice catch
... but I'd recommend he go on a fishing charter in Seward Alaska if he wants to catch some mongo fish. This trip was a major slayfest and my brother was Captain Crudd who knows how to fish with a beer in his hand. -
BugMeNot shortcut for 'ya ...NYT registration required to read this John Markoff (infamous at Slashdot because of his "sensational" coverage of Kevin Mitnick) article
... but fortunately, BugMeNot comes to the rescue with username/password of "twernt/twernt"This work was funded by Intel and DARPA with some assistance from an HP researcher and uses something called the Quantum-Confined Stark Effect with primary application in optical networking gear
... but hey, maybe we'll see a 100 GHz PC in the not-too-distant future.The halloween webcam is up
... but X10 technology isn't capable of 100 Billion times/second updates ... ;-) -
Some misc. Browser Percentage Data - GO FF!Looking at the browser data for this month so far on the halloween webcam, there is 64.3% IE, 27.2% Firefox, 2.5% Safari, 1.2% Netscape, 0.8% Mozilla, 0.7% Opera, and the rest misc. - even a handful of hits from WebTV and Firebird.
In comparison, the 2004 Christmas webcam had 67.9% IE, 21.1% Firefox, 2.7% Netscape, 2.7% Safari, 2.4% Mozilla, and 1.6% Opera. Not a lotta change, although one interesting thing is the drop in Mozilla (everyone uses Firefox now?) and Netscape - no surprise on the later.
This would support some of the press that says Firefox growth is slowing. Having said that, Firefox just ROCKS - really sucks when you can do something cool in HTML/CSS (example
:hover) and IE doesn't support it. And obligatory "extensions are cool" too ... GO FIREFOX! -
Some misc. Browser Percentage Data - GO FF!Looking at the browser data for this month so far on the halloween webcam, there is 64.3% IE, 27.2% Firefox, 2.5% Safari, 1.2% Netscape, 0.8% Mozilla, 0.7% Opera, and the rest misc. - even a handful of hits from WebTV and Firebird.
In comparison, the 2004 Christmas webcam had 67.9% IE, 21.1% Firefox, 2.7% Netscape, 2.7% Safari, 2.4% Mozilla, and 1.6% Opera. Not a lotta change, although one interesting thing is the drop in Mozilla (everyone uses Firefox now?) and Netscape - no surprise on the later.
This would support some of the press that says Firefox growth is slowing. Having said that, Firefox just ROCKS - really sucks when you can do something cool in HTML/CSS (example
:hover) and IE doesn't support it. And obligatory "extensions are cool" too ... GO FIREFOX! -
More info at WSJ Story and Jon's BlogThe WSJ story can be read here and has some interesting insights as Jon as a person. Also check out Jon's Blog that is appopriately (?) titled "So sue me"
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Next News UPDATE:
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Another example of journalist's DOOPPPPChristmas Lights webcam hoax ran from 2002 to 2004 until I outed myself. I can tell you from first hand experience that the fact checking of the mass media leaves a bit to be desired
... and that is being generous. A noteable exception was the Wall Street Journal - it was actually hard to convince 'em that the hoax was really a hoax - they were (rightfully so) concerned about a double-dupe ... too bad this /. story doesn't appear to have that element.Having said all that, do you think it is "real" this time?!?
;-) -
Another example of journalist's DOOPPPPChristmas Lights webcam hoax ran from 2002 to 2004 until I outed myself. I can tell you from first hand experience that the fact checking of the mass media leaves a bit to be desired
... and that is being generous. A noteable exception was the Wall Street Journal - it was actually hard to convince 'em that the hoax was really a hoax - they were (rightfully so) concerned about a double-dupe ... too bad this /. story doesn't appear to have that element.Having said all that, do you think it is "real" this time?!?
;-) -
WSJ Writer is Glenn Reynolds of InstaPundit FameThe writer of the WSJ piece was Glenn Reynolds who is identified as "a professor of law at the University of Tennessee but is probably better know for his InstaPundit.Com Blog. Interesting piece - Glenn has been published numerous times in the WSJ and (staying out of politics because people get overly zealous about this), writes some darn good stuff IMHO.
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Direct URL to SSTP web siteHere's a direct link to the StreamLined Sales Tax website which is confusing as all get out with their last press release being in 2002; makes you wonder how "legit" these guys are. BTW, should this be filed under "The Mighty Buck" instead of Politics?!?
;-)BTW, there's been a noteable increase in Wall Street Journal stories on Slashdot - certainly has improved the quality - kudo's to the editors and Carl Bialik from the WSJ
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Microsoft and AOL's REAL plan to "bury" GoogleMicrosoft buys AOL
Sends all "free AOL CD's" to Google.
After a few months, Google is buried in CD's.P.S. Remember the days when AOL floppies were actually useful since you never had to buy any? I actually had a useful purpose for an AOL CD cover recently as a free viewport on an outdoor webcam box.
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Re: What's buried in your back yard?"It's actually 12-16" above ground level (depending on where you are) and even with the back house door. We had a wood deck there before, but as noted on the deck design page, wood basically sucks in the dry, sunny Colorado environment. There allready is a ton of grass in the backyard (and yes, I mow it myself - note the concrete edging as a mow strip) so we wanted more of a hang-out place. I've been told that "patio" is more of a correct term than "deck" when it comes to concrete.
I assume the "big-ass shade thingie" refers to the patio umbrellas - yea, my wife did good on these. What's really cool is that I buried a pipe into the flowerpot concrete so that it is at the level of the dirt
... but with another "pipe sleeve" that drops into that, I can then place the umbrella there ... i.e. no bases to drag around. Check back in a few weeks to see that - some semi-clever engineering went into this as it is not as trivial as you might think at first glance. -
Re: What's buried in your back yard?"It's actually 12-16" above ground level (depending on where you are) and even with the back house door. We had a wood deck there before, but as noted on the deck design page, wood basically sucks in the dry, sunny Colorado environment. There allready is a ton of grass in the backyard (and yes, I mow it myself - note the concrete edging as a mow strip) so we wanted more of a hang-out place. I've been told that "patio" is more of a correct term than "deck" when it comes to concrete.
I assume the "big-ass shade thingie" refers to the patio umbrellas - yea, my wife did good on these. What's really cool is that I buried a pipe into the flowerpot concrete so that it is at the level of the dirt
... but with another "pipe sleeve" that drops into that, I can then place the umbrella there ... i.e. no bases to drag around. Check back in a few weeks to see that - some semi-clever engineering went into this as it is not as trivial as you might think at first glance. -
Re: What's buried in your back yard?"It's actually 12-16" above ground level (depending on where you are) and even with the back house door. We had a wood deck there before, but as noted on the deck design page, wood basically sucks in the dry, sunny Colorado environment. There allready is a ton of grass in the backyard (and yes, I mow it myself - note the concrete edging as a mow strip) so we wanted more of a hang-out place. I've been told that "patio" is more of a correct term than "deck" when it comes to concrete.
I assume the "big-ass shade thingie" refers to the patio umbrellas - yea, my wife did good on these. What's really cool is that I buried a pipe into the flowerpot concrete so that it is at the level of the dirt
... but with another "pipe sleeve" that drops into that, I can then place the umbrella there ... i.e. no bases to drag around. Check back in a few weeks to see that - some semi-clever engineering went into this as it is not as trivial as you might think at first glance. -
re: What's buried in your back yard?"
I just had 20 tons of stamped concrete poured into my backyard - I'm kinda curious to see if that shows up on the next satellite pass. Right now, the Boulder, Colorado footage comes from the summer of 2002 (easy to tell because we had a major drought) - sure would be nice if they date stamped the imagery.
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Then Jump off a Roof after a few of these ...
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MOD PARENT UPAppears to be the owner of the domain - keep us posted in this thread of how the Slashdotting is treating 'ya.
In case useful to 'ya, here's my experience with the Slashdot Effect - mostly data on the numbers, but a few pointers I learned and got from others in the 2004 summary about configured Apache if useful - big one is turn KEEPALIVE OFF.
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Kudos Opera and quickie registration link
Great idea Opera - I wonder if other companies would consider doing this - i.e. get free Windows Vista registration on Bill Gates 50th birthday? BTW, here's a direct link to the Free Registration Page and I see chat, photos, and some podcasting/MP3's are available
... but no live webcam feed of their party - I'm sure that would be more exciting that the concrete cam ... ;-) -
More at Global Electric Motorcars Web SiteFor those interested in more details about the GEM car and some MUCH better pictures than the small ones in the BBC article, here's GEM's web site.
Ironically, the Wikipedia Blobject article says it "needs to be cleaned up to conform to a higher standard of quality. This article has been tagged since April 2005" - you'd think that all those "hip" Blogject'ers would have made this entry super cool and happening.
Concrete Cam is up and running.
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Perfect Dupeas can be seen here
...Concrete Cam is up and running
... ;-) -
Just don't have the robot bat fly into my house ..I've had six bats show up in my house over the years (including one in the kitchen sink - good thing my wife didn't see that one)
... while I like 'em for the insect/mosquito eating, I prefer them outside rather than swooping around inside my house ...BTW, that URL shows me using a pair of screen windows to "fend" one off (I was only armed with a frisbee) - I figured that would provide a pretty good radar return as "solid" surface.
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Re:Wow
I agree
... Google had a PR/Marketing event, everyone had a few beers, listened to some music, talked business, and generally had a good time ... like most companies do periodically ... so not so big of deal ... but Google is on one heck of a roll, so all the power to 'em. I was disappointed that GoogleGirl didn't show up - maybe I'll invite her to my next birthday party ;-) -
Re:So does Slashdot have the same issue?
i dont mean to pry, but what kind of glasses are those you're wearing in the bottom yearbook pic... http://www.komar.org/faq/40th-birthday-party-idea
s /invite40-100.jpg -
So does Slashdot have the same issue?Carrying the analogy a bit further, my guess is that (currently) the Slashdot crowd tends to be a younger generation and most of the "old-farts" reject it - try to explain it to your parents or grandparents. So in the next few decades, will the younger crowd accept Slashdot
... or will the average age of /. readers just continue to increase?Disclaimer: I'm an "old-fart" - had my 40th birthday two years ago
... ;-) -
Re:this would of been great 5 years ago
Ditto parent's comments about target audiance is home automation
... I've used X10 for my christmas lights (which is really just another power control application) but z-wave is one of the technologies I'm looking at migrating too - just wish they were as mature/common/cheap/etc. as X10. -
Satellite stuff is from NavteqNote the "©2004 NAVTEQ" at the bottom right of the aerial pictures - this company provides a lot of the raw data in that area. While the Microsoft copyright is 2005, I wonder why the Navteq one is 2004 - surely they are getting updates from those guys (?)
Ironically, a few years ago, I put up some satellite photos of my house in Colorado
... and the Virtual Earth has the same ones clearly showing the drought of 2002 with a bunch of brown grass - not realistic to expect real-time imagery, but I'm surprised not a more recent pass. -
Re:Great!
If you know of a large LCD-type sign board that is USB and/or IP addressable, drop me a note - I would LOVE to hang this on the outside of my house for christmas 2005 and allow Internet folks to provide text inputs
... kinda along the lines of this site where you can enter text to show up on his screen saver. -
Re:Yeah, right.Here's the complete christmas hoax writeup
... would be kinda fun to do it for real this year - think anyone would believe it?!? ;-)Agent Green correctly points out a few of the real world issues that make doing it for a real a bit of a challenge.
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Re:Yeah, right.Here's the complete christmas hoax writeup
... would be kinda fun to do it for real this year - think anyone would believe it?!? ;-)Agent Green correctly points out a few of the real world issues that make doing it for a real a bit of a challenge.
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Komar Strikes Again?
"...while the lights are real, nobody was really turning the lights on and off - the webcam and webcontrol don't really exist on the house, only on the website..."
I'm still waiting for the inevitable Google Earth hoax or prank (satellite-readable message). -
This is completely unrelated to...
This is completely unrelated to the Christmas lights incident, right?
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Good viewing place for 'yaThe locals already know this, but for those
/.'ers that happen to be in the area, one easy and decent place to see the launch is from Cocoa Beach since it is just across the water from the launch pad. I saw a pre-dawn launch a while back from the Hilton that was pretty darn awesome. They have a big parking lot and you can simply walk through the lobby, grab a drink, check out the bikini's - maybe the Coppertone Girl will be there - and then watch the sky light up ... although won't be quite as awesome as a night launch. /.'ers will be checking their watches to measure the delay from seeing engine ignition to when you hear it and the dividing by 5 to get the distance in miles! ;-) -
Frickin' Hilareous
As the person who pulled off the Christmas Lights/Webcam Hoax let me just say Well Done Pablo Belmonte - the world needs more levity like this!
;-) -
So how did they cook it up for dinner?
Might this big BBQ grill be big enough to grill 'em?!?
;-) -
Solaris temperature monitoring/notificationI hacked up some Perl code a while back to use the built-in prtdiag command on Solaris for those machines that provide temperature data -take a look at gettemp if that is helpful to 'ya.
One nice thing about host monitoring is that if you lose a fan or have some localized cooling issue, you will know about it this way, rather than via a whole-room temperature monitor. There are certainly scalability issues with doing per-host monitoring though.
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Good info from Ben EdelmanBen Edelman has been writing about *&^%$#@! spyware for quite some time and not only provides information and actual video's of how these guys operate, but also untangles some of the financial backing of the companies and VC who are behind 'em.
The Big Green Guy ought to pay a visit to the spyware companies and do a World Wrestling Federation Hulk Drop on 'em!
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Young kids like minivans - teens like SUV's - DUH!My wife was actually reading this over lunch in the print edition and got a chuckle out of the closing paragraph:
"Soccer moms said their young children love minivans, which they regard as 'a playhouse on wheels,' but teens regard them as lame and want SUVs."
and her comment was "DUHHHH!!!!"I was kinda surprised that the "blog marketing expert" didn't say what Mom's thought about minivans, since (after all) they are the ones buying it, not the kids. My wife used to own a red Mazda sports car, but after our second kid, we bought a Toyota Sienna XLE Minivan
... and when the salesperson (who was actually nice) starting explaining all the "cool features" she stopped him saying "It's a minivan; there is nothing cool about it"