Slashdot Mirror

Too bad my favorite Big Green Guy didn't make the list! ;-)

A) COPS race. Any number of players can play. SEt a time limit (say 20) minutes. Pick a city. Score points for who can collect the most instances of:

1. Criminal Activity
2. Law enforcement officials
3. Men with their shirts off
4. Bodily fluids.

B) Product Place-a-thon.
THey've probably already figured out they can use the "car passing" technology demoed in the xmas lights hoax and are digital inserting posters, vans, newspapers and any number of other things.

C) Date the drive. Using contextual clues, figure out when the van passed by. Bonus points if you can locate the Van tech's Netstumbler log to corroborate the trip.

So while YES, there is a lot of fraud in this area, be careful about saying everyone running Google Adsense is "bad"

So while YES, there is a lot of fraud in this area, be careful about saying everyone running Google Adsense is "bad"

So while YES, there is a lot of fraud in this area, be careful about saying everyone running Google Adsense is "bad"

In a nutshell, user's computers/internet connections are getting faster, and images/videos are getting larger and more prelevent ... but then again, servers are getting faster with better connections ... so it's basically an arm's race! ;-)

In a nutshell, user's computers/internet connections are getting faster, and images/videos are getting larger and more prelevent ... but then again, servers are getting faster with better connections ... so it's basically an arm's race! ;-)

The whole "turn a spankin' brand new PC" onto the Internet and it's infected with tons of crap in a few weeks/months IS a real industry problem. There was a great /. article on spyware yesterday - more pressure needs to be brought to bear to the people feeding this industry. And while it's one thing to have banner ads that just "sit there", it seems that the mainstream folks could get by with less popups and cookie setting IMHO - the later especially can be used for nefarious tracking purposes.

Disclaimer: I've been a 20+ year WSJ subscriber and had some recent dealings with them plus a bunch of other media and the difference was night-n-day.

Probably my closest call came when the Slashdot did a story about the Halloween/2004 display ... and someone local decided to drive out and see the "wildly flashing lights" - read more about it here - but I live in a gated community. But it is a dinky gate (heck, even the pizza delivery guys can get through it) and if this person had walked just a 100' past the gate, he would have seen my house ... nice lights ... but not changing one iota - saved by the gate!

Interestingly enough, the FARK guys linked my Hoax page which includes a pointer to the WSJ article and those FARK guys wrote some HILARIOUS comments - so I wonder how many comments above were biased by the original press report?

Interestingly enough, the FARK guys linked my Hoax page which includes a pointer to the WSJ article and those FARK guys wrote some HILARIOUS comments - so I wonder how many comments above were biased by the original press report?

Interestingly enough, the FARK guys linked my Hoax page which includes a pointer to the WSJ article and those FARK guys wrote some HILARIOUS comments - so I wonder how many comments above were biased by the original press report?

P.S. I really DO have two kids and yes, please do not come knocking on my door - you were quite cool about the whole thing ... and I really DO mean that ... if you believe me! ;-)

Several media folks are slamming me for running Google Adsense and saying I cleaned up on it. That is simply not true ... but unfortunately, I can not comment on this due to Google's Program Policies ... but let me just say that the Google Adsense Revenue for the month will just about pay for my wife's 40th birthday party and I would have made a LOT more if I had taken that Radio Station's $10,000 offer. I invite the media to contact Google for the actual numbers and they have my permission to release 'em.

It seems like for all the trouble he went through to set up this hoax, it would actually have been easier to hook up the X10 to his computer and plop a real webcam outside.

What it took for the hoax:

• Taking 12 pictures for the various "on/off" states
• Taking those 12 pictures in varying amounts of snowcover
• Dynamically inserting airplanes overhead
• Dynamically changing the position of the garage door by superimposing the garage on one of the 12 pics.
• Dynamically adding stars in the sky that move over the course of the night
• Occasionally Adding "cars" driving by
• When the local news crew took him up in the helicopter, his wife stayed at home flipping the lights on and off.
• Putting a real (but disconnected) webcam in the neighbor's tree so snoopers would see the webcam.

I guess at least now we know who is really responsible for the moon landing video.

I wonder how much money he has made.

He talks about this in his FAQ. So if you can trust him anymore, check out question E7.
http://www.komar.org/xmas/faq/

It is indeed worth reading his version of the story, if not to pass judgment, then merely to see how he pulled it off. Its really quite interesting how much time he put into making the hoax believeable. With no less work, he probably could have made it actually work like it was supposed to...

Read what Alex himself has to say about the hoax. Pretty interesting to hear it from the man himself instead a news agency ticked off at him for fooling them.

Hey /.'ers ... it was all fun ... I'm SLAMMED ... will say more later ... but be SURE to read MY story of the events and also what Wall Street Journal guy wrote ... and then if you want, go to that Channel-7 site and cast your vote if I was naughty or nice!

alek@komar.org

I.e. I realize that something that is fairly "color deep" like my christmas webcam is probably undoable, but what about simple stuff like a red rose?

Everyone click here

Clicky Clicky!

1. I was using the same web interface as everyone else (and reloading Slashdot.org to see when the story would hit) and it was fairly responsive after it showed up in the Mysterious Future ... until 1749 ... and then BAMMM ... welcome to /. ;-)
2. Per the Christmas FAQ, the Web Server run Linux/Apache/Perl - IIS on Windoze 2003 - yea, right!
3. Main stats page is here - yea, big JUMP ... and as of 2100, Firefox is > 50% browser percentage.
4. I'd like to see AC#11069825 put HIS web server on Slashdot, especially with dynamic content. I had turned the webcam on early this evening at 1712, but then disabled it shortly after the story hit at 1749, but turned it back on 1930 and (except for a few Apache restarts for tuning purposes), the web site is semi (!) responsive and the machine was never rebooted ... plus (knock on wood), I haven't blown any fuses ... yet! ;-)

1. I was using the same web interface as everyone else (and reloading Slashdot.org to see when the story would hit) and it was fairly responsive after it showed up in the Mysterious Future ... until 1749 ... and then BAMMM ... welcome to /. ;-)
2. Per the Christmas FAQ, the Web Server run Linux/Apache/Perl - IIS on Windoze 2003 - yea, right!
3. Main stats page is here - yea, big JUMP ... and as of 2100, Firefox is > 50% browser percentage.
4. I'd like to see AC#11069825 put HIS web server on Slashdot, especially with dynamic content. I had turned the webcam on early this evening at 1712, but then disabled it shortly after the story hit at 1749, but turned it back on 1930 and (except for a few Apache restarts for tuning purposes), the web site is semi (!) responsive and the machine was never rebooted ... plus (knock on wood), I haven't blown any fuses ... yet! ;-)

His page explaining the Slashdot Effect appears to have been slashdotted. Oh, the irony.

log page has just been updated with the slashdot stats:

We'll see how well everything works tonight - expect things to be nuts and we'll see if mod_perl can save the day on the web server - fortunately, the analog stuff is throttled at one/second! ;-) I actually turned things on early tonight, but I may need to disable if the load gets too high. For those interested in data, I'll be updating my Christmas 2004 Slashdot Effect Analysis and I'll provide some followup here.

P.S. WRT JPEG/EXIF stuff: ummmmmm ... let me get back to you on that one!

I use X10 to turn my 17,000 christmas lights on and off and it would be neat if the various remote vendors added some X10 capability to their devices - my kids think so too! ;-)

I use X10 to turn my 17,000 christmas lights on and off and it would be neat if the various remote vendors added some X10 capability to their devices - my kids think so too! ;-)

BTW, I was tweeking my christmas webcam code today and I was actually surprised that I do NOT use DateTime there ... but I don't do much time manipulation and I intentionally tried to minimize modules inclusion for performance reasons ... but rest assured I use it in a lotta other code!

Another nifty customization would be to set the Firefox Home Page to something personal and/or Christmas'ie so they are reminded again of your gift (cool idea) when they fire up the browser.

LED's are definately the way to go, but the price still needs to come down quite a bit. People ask me if I used LED's for my Christmas Lights since when you have 22,000 of 'em (as I did in 2002), that's a lotta electricity. So while there are some GREAT looking LED Christmas Lights (with all the obvious advantages - and don't forget the color stays fairly permanent unlike painted on mini's), they are still really pricey ... especially when I can buy lights after the Holidays at 75% off.

http://www.komar.org/cgi-bin/xmas_webcam

I too was a mild-mannered scientist, until I was hit with an accidental dose of Gamma Rays and turned in The Incredible Hulk ... so Tim should be careful.

Got it - so never play RoShamBo with a dolphin!

The article mentioned "researchers successfully sent data from Switzerland to Tokyo at speeds of 7.21 gigabits per second" ... and if they want to watch the traffic for "neferious" content, that is gonna require one heck of a Network IDS (Intrusion Detection System - SNORT is a popular open source IDS) to keep up ... and the vast majority of the traffic will be about as exciting as watching grass grow

I don't want to takes side in the gun-debate, but will point out there are no plans to add "shooting" (except for pictures) to the Christmas Lights Webcam

Since yours is static, maybe you could talk to the MirrorDot folks and see if they would host it.

P.S. I just turned on the environmental senors for the christmas webcam, so stop by if you want a real-time look at Colorado weather.

Since yours is static, maybe you could talk to the MirrorDot folks and see if they would host it.

P.S. I just turned on the environmental senors for the christmas webcam, so stop by if you want a real-time look at Colorado weather.

Since yours is static, maybe you could talk to the MirrorDot folks and see if they would host it.

P.S. I just turned on the environmental senors for the christmas webcam, so stop by if you want a real-time look at Colorado weather.

Google: 1,000 MBytes
Hotmail: 250 MBytes
Yahoo: 100 Mbytes

P.S. When I first tried to read this story, I got "Nothing for you to see here. Please move along" ... somewhat ironic I'd say ...

I have a fairly complex halloween decorations and christmas lights setup (includes X10 controls for the lights and a webcam), but I leave the VCR programming up to my wife.

I have a fairly complex halloween decorations and christmas lights setup (includes X10 controls for the lights and a webcam), but I leave the VCR programming up to my wife.

The article says it may go as far south as Oklahoma, but I haven't seen anything yet here in Colorado, although I did see some pretty nifty Aurora Borealis over Boulder, Colorado last year.

The Incredible Hulk had fun with his halloween decorations but that's a warmup for his christmas lights where he plays RoShamBo when not helping out Google Compute.

The Incredible Hulk had fun with his halloween decorations but that's a warmup for his christmas lights where he plays RoShamBo when not helping out Google Compute.

The Incredible Hulk had fun with his halloween decorations but that's a warmup for his christmas lights where he plays RoShamBo when not helping out Google Compute.