Slashdot Mirror
Linux Powered Christmas Tree
_xeno_ writes "Ever wondered what happens if you cross a Christmas tree with a Linux server? You get ChristmasTree.WPI.EDU. It's a Red Hat 7.2 server running on an artificial Christmas tree as a decoration. You can make the tree play different songs (no, not your browser, the tree's soundcard) by clicking on the pictures. Apparently, the ability to control the tree lights is coming soon."
Just when you think you've seen it all, someone changes what "It" is.
Brings new meaning to the term "fire hazard."
"I think there is a world market for, maybe, five computers." __ IBM Chairman, 1943 __
i would like one.
Please tell me the didn't choose Red Hat because Santa Claus wears one.
,
faeryman
i cant wait till the processor starts the tree on fire
admit defeat, live in decline, be the victim of our own design
I can barely believe this site is still up. I wonder what happens with race conditions in those music playing cgi scripts. I wish I was in the CCC Shop so that I could find out. I guess I'll just have to imagine the frantic beeps and wails as the mighty slashdot effect takes its toll on the tune.
Even Slashdot wants to hide some things
i've got a project now that school's out!
no HOWTO, no circuit diagrams, no Linux-controlled flashing lights, no war stories, just a few ... pictures.
move along now, nothing to see here.
- j
do not tell some girl that you have a linux powered christmas tree, and never ever give her the url for it with you standing next to it.
An Education is the Font of All Liberty
an Xmas tree can withstand /.ing. Myabe this shows the power of GNU/Linux in webservering?
Sig:Why copyright isn't a fundamental human right
First tree in history to be slashdotted?
Yeah, but does it run...
Oh, wait. I guess it does. Anyway, stand by for the incoming "imagine a Beowulf cluster..." jokes. I'm going to huddle in a corner now, trying to figure out how to get my outdoor Christmas lights up on my RH server.
They that would sacrifice their
wow, and i thought i procrastinate studying.
www.hamjudo.com
has a webfridge,
its the oldest running webpage I know of.
also has "Wave to the cats" and "check pauls hottub"
How long do you think it will take them to unplug the speakers?
This reminds me of a Jersey Mike's that got one of those stupid singing bass things. I couldn't help but notice the tremendously annoyed looks on their faces when customers would walk in and push the red "press me" button.
The next day the fish was gone.
I'm also surprised it isn't slashdotted yet.
Lets count the seconds until the
4... 3... 2... 1...
I posted to
I'm all for Geek-Power and everything, but that's about the dumbest thing I've ever seen. Blah.
So, how long before the tree gets /.-ed? "Yeah, I was crusing the 'net, and I crashed a tree!" 'Tis the season, I guess :)
Merry Christmas all!
Joe
could slashdot reporting get any worse.
Can you imagine a Beowulf cluster of these?
Or would that be a Beowulf forest?
"I think he was truly surprised at how little I cared about how big a market the Mac had" - Linus on Jobs
I've been thinking about this long and hard (for about a second and a half) and as thinking what this could mean for other religious festivals...
;)
The Muslims already have a head start.. emacs can do the calendar conversions in its code to the lunar year, thus killing the debate on which day Ramadan starts on. exactly. (There as debate on whether it was the 16th or the 17th of Nov. when it started.) Oh, as long as everything is in
Zulu.
It would help out the Orthodox Jews, who are forbidden from the use of anything technologic on the Sabbath. After all, they did nothing; the system did it all by itself. The menorah would be lit at the right time every night of Hanukkah, and the best part is that there's a decreased risk of fire with LED lights.
Now, how to help the pagans... webcamming the ceremonies may increase their cash stock.. especially if their the dead sexy ones that celebrate nude..
I used to be someone else. Now I'm someone better.
Real life is underrated.
But where is the monitor displaying xsnow?
I've been running that every December since 1994. Don't like the new Sanda art, though. Outta dig out my Sun SPARCstation IPC and see if I still have an ancient vesion of it installed.
I guess this was a slow news day.
Carpe Deez
So let's sing it again and spread some Christmas cheer!
/etc/passwd > list
better !pout !cry
better watchout
lpr why
santa claus town
cat
ncheck list
ncheck list
cat list | grep naughty > nogiftlist
cat list | grep nice > giftlist
santa claus town
who | grep sleeping
who | grep awake
who | grep bad || good
for (goodness sake) {
be good
}
Think this code is on the tree?
--Josh
There are exactly 42,935,718 letter sized sheets in a square mile.
...my true love gave to me
A linux-powered Christmas Tree
I use Macs to up my productivity, so up yours Microsoft!
Don't get me wrong I usually love hacked stuff, portable 2600, tetris on a building, laser mame etc. But this is shite. Take a pentium out of a case and throw it into a tree, big deal. Anyone want to see my linux bookcase?
I cannot believe the russian chappies freedom doesn't make the front page but this does, arrgh.
It must be hell in there... songs playing all the time. Wonder why it isn't slashdotted yet...? Maybe Plastic Tree + Linux = unslashdottable.
How does the treeserver react to soooo many people picking songs? Does it make a playlist? Or does it simply switch?
Everything is mainstream now.
Santa Claus riding on penguins
The authors basically decided to use a Christmas tree as a case for a computer instead of an actual case. Could we all not just set a small tree on top of our cases and have a similar effect? Anyone could wrap the guts of their PC around a christmas tree, but what is the value of that? It becomes a delayed action fire hazard that turns the computer lab to ashes.
I wonder how it sounds playing "Silent Night" several thousand times in parallel through ONE sound card... sequentially would be stupid, it'd still play on next year's Xmas.
They'll surely have their reason to postpone the ability to control its lights.
Seems that they've reduced the load on the server by caching the pages. The server tacks this little piece of info onto the end of every header...
Via: 1.1 webcacheB06 (NetCache NetApp/5.2R1D5)
activate(SPY_CAM,1,cam1);
cam1.monitor(BOYS,GIRLS);
if (BOYS == "good")
{
give(presents, BOYS);
}
if (GIRLS == "good")
{
give(presents, GIRLS);
}
else
{
give(coal, BOTH);
}
It's not a "linux-powered christmas tree". It's a tree with a computer placed on it. Just a computer without a case. A "linux-powered christmas tree" would mean that the tree is powered by linux. This is not the case as you can cleary see. Linux is not powering the tree in anyway, the tree is just sitting there.
Nothing fancy here....move along.
Also, a "Christmas" tree has ornaments, lights, tinsel...christmasy things....this tree has styrofoam and other computer junk to decorate it.
It's just a tree with a computer in it.
The Grinch has a new excuse for stealing trees this season
All those Slashdot who-geeks perhaps, know the reason
feel free to continue...
Chuck buddy... you are in dire need of a woman.
http://windows.scares.us
Honestly, just imagine 80,000 attempts at starting "Silver Bells" that get no further than the first three notes. His office mates are gonna kill him.
Carousel is a lie!
Actually, I'd prefer a computer UNDER the tree, rather than wrapped around it... :)
-Evan.
Is it just me, or does the close up pictures show the CPU fan not spinning?
My email addy? should be easy enough.
They will probably be the only thing that his officemates will ENJOY taking down after the holidays. That is, after they lock him up and make him listen to Christmas Carols changing rapidly for 10 days straight.
You rule
/satterth
Being called a dork on Slashdot must be like being called the retard in special ed.
I think its running the Secure Ornament Server.
SOS
Rob.
Well after 4 years and $125,000 I can honestly feel proud about something my school did. Even if not directly sponsored by the school. Probably the first time WPI has been /.ed too.
It is a Pentium 100 with 64MB RAM, running Red Hat Linux 7.2.
I wonder how long it takes this site to get slashdotted. Any bets? 10 minutes max.
-Vic
If it ran Microsoft Windows, it would be sure to fall down and then catch of fire. Microsoft would then come out and say it was a feature, but then wouldn't give much detail on why the feature exists.
Running Linux, if it crashes it can climb back up on to the table itself without the administrator being there.
Seriously, why the fuck would you want to do this? It is boring, it serves no useful purpose, and it probably took a decent amount of effort.
Oh, wait - this must be their new l33t w4r3z server. Since the last one got confiscated, they figured hiding it in a Christmas tree might help.
or is that guy like a total goober? i mean, it's cool to have the skills to do that, but, i mean, shit, come on.
then again, i probably shouldn't talk. i'll be like that in about 6 or 7 years too
My favorite parts of the picture are actually the basketball hoop hanging directly above the workbench, and of course, the rolling monitor stand that promotes bad posture when working on that server its connected to. Man, it looks like my work area. Are we related?
What will the kids do for gifts when he crashes?
The above post is an editorial, the poster cannot and will not be held responsible for all or in part for it's contents
...and what's It seems weird and strange to me. It'll happen to you...
Do you really think they are going to leave the speakers on while half a zillion Slashdot readers bombard their playlist ?
Are things at American universities getting better or worse. 15 years ago when I was in college, when we wanted to have fun we went out and got beer, lots of beer and got drunk. Now in 2001 people have fun by turning poor harmless evergreens into web servers, wha-whooo!!!! They probably will feel better tomorrow than I felt the day after and this was probably an educational rather than brain cell drowning experience, but is this progress????
An ugly remote controlled jukebox!
And soon it will have light control? Like I did with my user port hack on a Commodore 64?
Wow, cutting edge here...
Someone set us up the bomb, so shine we are!
Wait, I don't get it. If I don't want a date I shouldn't tell her about the tree or if I do want a date I shouldn't tell her about the tree. Either way, I'll probably just tell her my wood is computerized.
"Me mule wouldn't work in the mud. So I had to put seventeen bullets in 'er!" - Willy
I'll bet Charles R Anderson and the rest of the netops/ex-netops crew (yes that means you frank, phro, kozer, sean etc.) are coming all over each each other about excitement of being on slashdot!
That's literally the sound of a thousand terrible slashdotters setting their Christmas tree on fire...
They could not even print out christmastree.wpi.edu
This looks like a 4 doughnut project to me.
Pick unlikely object. Take non-functional motherboard and hang it from said object. Take photos of motherboard hanging from object. Put photos on website. Submit story to /. that you've created the first website-on-an-[object].
:)
Snow - Joke Thing
I was driving home (why oh why)
Subconscious mind telling me I tripped up in me own lies
Six and seven in the morning and you know me can't stop
I could reach back home or atop of the barber shop
Cause that's my sure thing when I met that thing had to hit that thing
What a joke thing
Why did I do the what a joke thing? Come on
What a joke thing, baby
Come make me do the what a joke thing? Hey now!
First she rocked me, then she rolled me
The she rubbed me, then she hold me
What a joke thing
Smoking in her room (high so high)
The sun rolls up across the morning floor too soon
Honey now you know me, but you know me can't stay
Had you tuggin' on my shirt but blew a kiss anyway
Cuz you're my sure thing and I can't go by, and I can't go by
Now why you wanna know why you don't see me around
Got me caught up in some traffic way cross town
An' you're my sure thing and no not a joke, no no no not a joke
What a joke thing
Why did I do the what a joke thing? Come on
What a joke thing, baby
Come make me do the what a joke thing? Hey now!
First she rocked me, then she rolled me
The she rubbed me, then she hold me
What a joke thing
On my way back home (my oh my)
Guilty conscious mind just seems to roam
Now if you hear this song and you know you can laugh
She had me sitting outside in the middle of glass
It's a joke thing, and I left that ring what a stupid thing
What a joke thing
Why did I do the what a joke thing? Come on
What a joke thing, baby
Come make me do the what a joke thing? Hey now!
First she rocked me, then she rolled me
The she rubbed me, then she hold me
What a joke thing
A big thanks goes out to Snow for making this all possible.
If this tree falls down with nobody around, does the 'Net notice?
A Pentium 100 with 64 megs of RAM draped around a frickin' Christmas tree is handling the Slashdot effect where many other sites running on much beefier hardware have failed. Cripes.
Oh my goodness! It is!!
Now I have yet another use for the AOL, MSN, etc. and all my old Technet subscription CDs that came in the mail! ;-).
Now, I can decorate the tree so much that nobody will tell if it's artificial
HoHoHo!
db
Cig:
ôô
Looks like the tree finally got slashdotted. I can not pull up the page.
Hey hang some more memory ornaments and maybe another CPU ornament you are looking a little bare.
I guess if one were to fall, it probably would make some noise ("Jingle Bells... Jingle Bells...") whether or not anyone was around.
Thank you for reading One Man's Opinion. No participation necessary. Offer void where deemed by law or PATRIOT Act.
I wonder what those equations were on the board behind the tree. These guys are true geeks if they used some sort of formula to calculate the details in setting this up.
You ever wonder what it sounds like to be slashdotted? They will soon find out!
Greg
Life is like pants... fit in or you don't fit in.
No direct line of sight to the tree, but you can
:)
see the lights draped around the room, controllable via the webpage, and viewed live via webcam.
http://206.54.177.105. The Xmas lights are in the living room. I'm sure you geeks can figure it out.
-Restil
Play with my webcams and lights here
The sad thing is that this is yet another hoax.
One future, two choices. Oppose them or let them destroy us.
--
Evan
"$30 for the One True Ring. $10 each additional ring!" -- JRR "Bob" Tolkien
"If Santa gives me coal, I'll use it to burn his @$$ when he comes down the chiminey next year!" - spoiled child
Hey - as a chick I have to say that this while this isn't the most attractive odd project I've seen it's infinitely more attractive then "watch me roll around in the mud with 10 other guys chasing a dead pig" pictures.
It's a bit odd and not that technically challenging - but at least he's trying.
I don't have a solution, but I certainly admire the problem.
Here I am reading all this about my Christmas tree which was done by my workstudy just to annoy me, I'm sure. Thanks Paul!!! I just turn off the damn speakers and him have his fun. I mean hell... Paul's a good employee... If he wants to build a Christmas tree with a PC in it, I guess I can deal. BTW, the basketball hoop is fun, but what you can't see is all the magnets we ripped out of dead hard drives that are stuck to the ceiling :P
Man I need a vacation!
Scott....
Ever wondered what happens if you cross a Christmas tree with a Linux server?
No.
It can't really be serving off of that board. I mean, slashdotters can 'slashdot' even highend equipment. Yet, a Pentium 100 with only 64 megs is taking the punishment???
Yeah right.
some yuppy stripped a computer, threw it in a tree, and put ?Linux? on it.
Who cares if it is "linux powered". I mean by badly using that term you guys are suggesting that Linux is only good for powering exotic little projects and not mainstream desktop users.
Maybe I should strip my computer and put it in a fish tank.... Then it will be a fisktank with windows?
Tom
Someday, I'll have a real sig.
Man this thing sucks. Throw a motherboard in a tree and run linux on it and watch idiots loose it. "Oh man, it runs linux...sweet"...As if running linux matters - its a damn christmas tree. Nothing windows couldn't do. What a shitty post.
There's a big yellow thing in the sky. It's called the sun. Check it out sometime!
but can it sync with my palm pilot?
So if this tree crashes, and there is no admin there to recover it - does it make sound?
This is mega retarded! I wouldn't post pictures of that piece of junk. He didn't even make it look cool. It's like he just threw some crap parts and cables on a fuckin tree and said "Hey if I claim its a Linux server,I could be on /."
As has already been posted numerous times - this isn't much of a hack - a server out of the case sitting in a fake tree - YAWN...
/. and watch it melt down!
So, here is a free project - do it this year (not much time left, but I bet somebody could do it), or next - or whenever...
Get a piece of plywood or cardboard, cut it out in the shape of a christmas tree. Paint it (green for the tree, brown trunk, maybe some ornaments, or not).
Arrange a buttload of LEDs - red, green, yellow (and maybe blue if you are rich) - on the tree, by drilling holes (or, if you cut out the tree from pegboard, it is pre-drilled!) - now, here is where you can go wild:
1. Arrange them in a dense grid - and hook them up to the server to play tetris, etc (you know the routine). Add a web-cam, plus MP3 xmas songs through the sound card. Or use a SBC running Linux - or something.
2. Arrange them randomly, and have strings pulsing and flashing to the music. Maybe do a double "tree" - with two pieces of pegboard at right angles, and careful wire arrangement (to make it look like decorations as well?), and have the tree spin on a turntable (power would have to be applied via batteries and and SBC, and a wireless NIC).
Remember the web cam!
Post it to
Come on, someone should build this...soon!
Reason is the Path to God - Anon
Hey man, what's your problem?
Insert Sig Here
"A mind is a terrible thing to lose."
He has the look that he just pinched a loaf.
30% off web hosting. Coupon code "SLASHDOT".
This is your christmas tree -- This is your christmas tree on Linux!
Bo
Odin hung on the world tree for 7 days, what of this poor pentium? I wonder what wisdom it will gain?
five Goatse links!!
goatse.cx
goatse.cx
goatse.cx
goatse.cx
goatse.cx
You are an idiot.
Worst. Implementation. Ever.
Just because you can mod me down, doesn't mean you're right. Shoes for industry!
Um, yeah, my dorms rooms christmas lights are all controlled by my debian box. Not only is my system controlling over 3000 total christmas lights, two four foot long black lights and my sound system, but it runs debian too! What more do you want.
Ok, ok. I've got a fever for more lighting, and the only perscription is some LED christmas lights and some ropelight, and god damn it, if I want LED christmas lights and ropelight, i'll get some. i should be scooping a bunch up post christmas.
Now all I need is a generator for my dorm room.
Myren
Has this been submitted to linuxdoc.org yet?
Another example of something stupid RH dont need in their OS. I hope they dont start distributing with this in it?
Ill stick with BSD, nice, clean, simple.
I have 6->8 proceses running on startup and 51M of 64M free, i like that.
I've been thinking recently about adding some red blue and green strands to my otherwise white christmas light collection.
The color balance would probably suck, as I highly doubt the R B and G strands would all be the same intensity. I'd probably have to make a photoshop Curves adjuster for my homebrew PWM (scenix/ubicom microcontroller hooked to serial port).
On a last note, anyone know how bright LED christmas lights are compared to normal ones? I'd like to stop generating heat / wasting energy, but if i have to buy three times as many lights its just not worth it ( especially when college is paying my insane power bill ).
My rooms next upgrade is a generator, so I can keep adding more toys.
Myren
and people who live on campus wonder why their internet connection sucks... it's because netops spends their time on christmas trees!
Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum sonatur.
Josh? I believe that this is the very tree. To think, we put presents under that tree almost 4 years ago to the day. How it has grown. I wonder if Edwin will read about the this from Kenya. And it was 95 and Linux, not 3.1. He considered it essential maintenance to reinstall Windows every month.
I know some chicks that would really dig this tree. If the linux box could control the lights and sound of the tree, they would want to know what and how I did it.
What a better way to get two geeks together around a geeky tree?
What really scrares me is what you see if you look closely on the whiteboard behind the three:
Words like "WinXP", "Windows 2000" and "OSR2" appear if you zoom in with the Gimp.
I'm not being paranoid, am I ?
Conceptually, it's a really great idea
but actually, it's a damned ugly Christmas tree.
Last year, a friend of mine used a SuSE 7.0 box to control about 20 sets of Christmas lights all over his house - it was truely schweet!
Listening for the sound of the coming rain...
How do you fix that percussive sounding audio on this iMac 333MHz OS 8.6 96RAM Apple Computer?...
The notes don't sound right, they sound like percussion rhythm only.
Cheers!
oo__ don@saklad.org
I'm not actually sure if this has been mentioned. But every time I try to view the page with Galeon 1.01 it crashes with a Segfault. Very Weird!!
Here's an Interactive Christmas Tree you can turn the lights on and off (4 different types)
http://www.xmas4all.net/
Ok. Who rooted the Christmas tree box?
...but this appears to be a J O K E. You know, ha ha?
Maybe the thing that would scare the girl most is wondering where he is going to put linux next.
It's gone, but there are still plenty of stale links to it that can be found with a Google search.
1 0wnZed j00R tr@@
About the only thing that could improve the geeky charm of that tree would be to use up some of his AOL CD collection. Common, he's got to have one.
rejected (19) accepted (0)
Is there a psychological term related to getting your stories rejected on slashdot?
some idiot hangs a mboard on a tree & its a step forward for linux.
sad.
Yeah, it also says "X-Terminals" and if you look really close, you can see some of the numbers we call for RMAs on a regular basis. ;)
lol. look carefully. I wrote all those things. "WinXP == ghey" "Win95 OSR 2 called Win97 == ghey" "x-terminals == ghreat" They have been scribbled on and may say something different by now...but who knows. We support Microsoft at work...but i'll be damned if people think I promote it :)
I just went downstairs to the CCC Shop. it was locked up and when i put my ear up to the door, i heard nothing but the whir of a few cooling fans.
I think we could pull this off... :)
Insert Sig Here
BlueLava CGI Interface for X-10
Linux Home Automation Page
Considering the server is right there on the tree, controlling it via the parallel port might be the way to go.