Slashdot Mirror
X10 Xmas Light Control with Pan and Zoom
zzxc writes "Last year, slashdot mentioned Alek Komarnitsky's 2002 Christmas Light display with the ability to turn ON and OFF each zone of lights. This year, he has added the ability to pan and zoom the camera in the web control, which works from 5-12 MST. You can select zoom from 1-5x, pan horizontally and vertically by selecting the angle, as well as turn each zone of lights ON or OFF. He also has sensors that tell you the current temperature, humidity, if it detects stars (vs clouds), and more. However after last year's 22,000 web controlled lights, he's "burnt out", putting up less than 4,000 lights. Last year, his lights pulled 78.6 amps of current. This year, he is only pulling about 14.7 amps. Also, last year his home T1 line was completely saturated by all the press attention. This year, he's ready. (Note that this is not referring to X10 wireless video cameras, but to power control devices using the x10 protocol.)"
I didn't see the answer to the question everyone is asking: can you pan far enough to see the girl in the bikini by the pool?
I just saw his wife walk by the side of the webcam naked, and she is hot!
"Why I changed to OpenBSD"
or...
"Why I spent the last four days drinking Red Bull, swearing at my laptop and pulling my hair out"
Right, so, I've got this Compaq Evo N600c Laptop right? Yes. Now, I thought, hmmm, wouldn't it be nice to run Linux on my laptop? Yes. So, off I went, happily researching, downloading, reading docs, reading more docs, browsing newsgroups and forums, making notes of conflicting opinions regarding APIC, ACPI etc etc
It comes to crunch time. Let's get ready to install Linux! Bear in mind that I already use Gentoo 1.4 on my A7N8X-DLX (NForce2) board, I was all set to run it on my laptop too. (I'm not even going to go there with the problems I had with that one).
So off I go and install Gentoo on my laptop. No problems. ReiserFS, freshest Kernel 2.6.0 straight off of kernel.org - all is well. Then I get to X. I want to use either the nipple mouse and/or synaptics touchpad. NOT A CHANCE. After fucking about with boot options, BIOS settings, compiling the kernel with the necessary support enabled, downloading/compiling/installing the Synaptics stuff from that telia.com site, 60 million different XF86Configs and reading nearly every single gentoo forum posting about "synaptics", I'm pissed off. No, seriously fucking annoyed.
Linux is great. Don't get me wrong. But why oh fucking why is there so much effort put into supporting archaic Gravis Gamepads, outdated SCSI boards and shit like that when a common, modern laptop accessory takes a Herculean feat of brain power and mental strain to get working? X works, the mouse doesn't. Yippie Kai Ay.
So, I thought to myself "I use OpenBSD on the Mini-ITX firewall, I'll give that a go. Never used it as a desktop, but WTF. It deserves a shot". So, a nice breezy install of OpenBSD 3.4 later, and I "startx". Jesus. Holy Crap. THE TOUCHPAD WOKRS!!!!! For all the "emerge"ing, fiddling and reading that I did, it is all blown away with a wonderous result on OpenBSD.
So, to sum up, my experience with installing OSS on laptops has been this: "If you don't want to frustrate yourself into an early grave, boot> OpenBSD"
"Incoming Slashdot`er - Maximum Power to Web Server!"
-You may license this sig for only $6.99.
Love the "Incoming Slashdotter, Maximum power" message!
Even if a man chops off your hand with a sword, you still have two nice, sharp bones to stick in his eyes.
Making it 10 trillionth overall" - Simpsons.
Seriously, though, I'd bet that this site would do really well if on xmas eve, santa showed up and deposited presents, and then did a pole dance or something.
stuff |
No, this has nothing to do with the story.
So, I'm used for the ads for Thinkgeek. Even the ads for Microsoft don't faze me. But I bring up this story, and the ad is "Slashdot Personals, powered by Match.com".
And I said to myself, "Wow. Now _there's_ some targeted advertising. That's the sort of marketer that would sell icecubes on the Titanic."
"The localtime is 1154 - the webcam/webcontrol will be operational in 5 hours, 6 minutes". Come back later.
karma karma karma karma karma chameleon, you come and go, you come and go.
*_g_o_a_t_s_e_x_*_g_o_a_t_s_e_x_*_g_o_a_t_s_e_x_*_ _ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __
g_______________________________________________g
o_/_____\_____________\____________/____\_______o
a|_______|_____________\__________|______|______a
t|_______`._____________|_________|_______:_____t
s`________|_____________|________\|_______|_____s
e_\_______|_/_______/__\\\___--___\\_______:____e
x__\______\/____--~~__________~--__|_\_____|____x
*___\______\_-~____________________~-_\____|____*
g____\______\_________.--------.______\|___|____g
o______\_____\______//_________(_(__>__\___|____o
a_______\___.__C____)_________(_(____>__|__/____a
t_______/\_|___C_____)/______\_(_____>__|_/_____t
s______/_/\|___C_____)_______|__(___>___/__\____s
e_____|___(____C_____)\______/__//__/_/_____\___e
x_____|____\__|_____\\_________//_(__/_______|__x
*____|_\____\____)___`----___--'_____________|__*
g____|__\______________\_______/____________/_|_g
o___|______________/____|_____|__\____________|_o
a___|_____________|____/_______\__\___________|_a
t___|__________/_/____|_________|__\___________|t
s___|_________/_/______\__/\___/____|__________|s
e__|_________/_/________|____|_______|_________|e
x__|__________|_________|____|_______|_________|x
*_g_o_a_t_s_e_x_*_g_o_a_t_s_e_x_*_g_o_a_t_s_e_x_*
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Do we need a link to everything that caught the posters eye ?
Why modded Flamebait now???
Plus has low UID and good karma... are mods on crack?
It's slashdotted already.
Christmas-nerds do NOT have to tempt the slashdot crowd.
What's the big deal? What was wrong with the good, old-fashioned throw-some-lights-in-the-bushes-and-in-the-gutters light scheme? Now, everyone's house either looks like the front yard of a church or a disco roller-arena from the 70s. Its John Travolta meets Jesus.
This year, he's ready.
Do I hear a challenge?
Isn't this a little dangerous? I mean, putting all that light out there, couldn't an airplane mistake his house for a runway?
:)
And who pays this guy's electricity bill?
So what if I'm jealous. Let me be bitter.
a LOT.
It appears his children were born upside down. I think doing the Christmas light is his way of coping with the pain and anguish.
TT
I did the same sort of thing. Hooked up the x10 and had the little cracker control a power module. Used the php x10 stuff and people could turn off the camera at will.
The driver which I help write is working under linux. The controls of the camera are not working right now (Porting driver to 2.6.0 kernel).
I did not get enough sleep, people would keep turning on and off the camera. Click, Click and Click all night. 8*)
If anyone would like to help/patch or use their x10 cameras here is the link:
http://www.emuit.com/webcam.html
There was another guy who set up webcams in his house and put all his lights on X10, and allowed people to control them over the web. Thing is, he's STILL doing it, it must have been going for a couple of years now.
This story reminded me of it, so I went back, and he's live on the thing STILL, so well worth checking out.
It's here at DriveMeInsane.com (definitely an apt URL).
mogorific carpentry experiments
server is getting a pretty bad spanking.
Musta been naughty.
It looks like he got rid of most of the gizmos and only has three lights hooked up now. He used to have about 12 sets of lights, and you could also control a remote control car that had a camera on it. I guess that all gets a bit expensive to maintain though. Oh, and you could do the sprinklers, and look at his doorcam.
mogorific carpentry experiments
Is anybody else wondering why exactly this guy had a T1 line in his house in the first place last year? Furthermore, is anybody else a little disappointed that he didn't decide to upgrade his T1 line to a home T3 line this year instead of paying for hosting?
I know, I know, it's not just that company that does the annoying pop up ads.
Sorry, whenever I hear X10, it just creates so much rage in me I won't even bother reading the fine article.
Let my lesson be learned by all advertising execs. Annoy your customers enough, the backlash and bad feelings may last forever -- or at least the life of your company.
p.s. SCO could stand to learn a similar lesson.
I think many stations are running "Christmas Vacation" about now. Don't we all secretly want a crude, but well-meaning cousin Eddie to bitchslap the boss and have Beverly D'Angelo cup our balls? And have squirrel attacks from Christmas trees? The squirrel attack was the best part.
Agreed. Are there any companies that do the same thing as X10? How are they with Linux support?
A firewall can not protect you from yourself. Turn off what you do not need. Do not use the firewall to do your work.
This project reminds me of Blinkenlights... This was an awesome project where you could display a small picture/animation/play pong/other on a building using the windows and interior lights as pixels. http://blinkenlights.de/
DrkBr
is my own T-3, my own T-3, my own T-3....
So I can have a Merry Christmas.
*sigh*
Not if my friend, but when..
Er, yes, there are several dozen that make 'x10' hardware, x10 is a protocol, not just an irritating company; in fact, the protocol is older than the irritating company.
- Turq - "That's TRON, he fights for the users."
You've gone and slashdotted the most common words in the english language! Now what are we going to do?
public const bool watch_out = 1;
public const bool cry != CRY;
string why; cout why;
santa.target = "town";
apvector[99] list;
for (x = 0; x list.length(); x++)
{
kid.nice = check(list[x]);
kid.nice = check(list[x]);
if kid.nice == "naughty"
naughty(kid);
if kid.nice == "nice"
nice (kid);
if kid.state == (sleep || awake)
know(kid);
if kid.state == (bad || good)
know(kid);
}
for (x = "goodness sake"); x != ""; x = x)
cout "be good!";
public const bool watch_out = 1;
public const bool cry != CRY;
string why; cout why;
santa.target = "town";
This is a creation of Jewish people because they are "offended" by the use of the word "Christ".
Jewish people hate Christ and anything to do with Christ, including and especially Christmas.
They will not write the word "Christmas" down so they replaced the name "Christ" with an "X" to "STRIKE OUT" the name of Christ.
Please be more sensitive to the MAJORITY of people that do believe in Christ and Christmas by not using the Jewish slang term "Xmas"
Thanks.
Talk about light pollution... It'd be like the sun is next door to you.
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this light orgy was powered by wind power (not generated by him, I gathered... he still had to pay for it).
At least he's throwing a bone to the Enviro types... who apparently numbered exactly one. That's right... one person challenged him to put the display on wind power and sent him a check... and he was the only one to actually send money
At least there's one guy out there willing to back up his environmental beliefs with cash...
Even if a man chops off your hand with a sword, you still have two nice, sharp bones to stick in his eyes.
I wasn't aware of that, so I decided to search for other companies and came up empty; some tech on the protocol and all adverts were to the same X10 company that we all (ahem) "know and love".
Since I'm missing something that should be obvious, please point me to a couple of those other companies.
A firewall can not protect you from yourself. Turn off what you do not need. Do not use the firewall to do your work.
I put my money in companies worthy of it (and whenever I can't avoid for one reason or another).
That's not the case here and X10 can go bankrupt and take their pop-unders with them.
I was going to point you to my favorate, Active Home. Don't bother. I guess X10.com owns them now. Radio Shack sells X10 stuff, Sears used to. I get enough stuff at estate sales and garage sales that I haven't bought new in years. People sell used X10 stuff for under $1 per module, I find a few every year.
Is the radio shack stuff rebadged x10 company crap? Radio Shack rebadges everything you know!
I have misterhouse running on XP. What I need to play a sound file upon motion detected. I have a ms132 up and running and everytime it picks up motion, the misterhouse GUI prints out a "garage light XA2J is on" notification. I just want to play a sound file everytime that happens....
TIA
eat shiat and bark at the moon
Good to see our metaphorical Fonzie's spirit wasn't broken in the attempt, though.
LED based Christmas lights take about 5% of the power of regular bulbs but are a lot more expensive. Given the amount of power that he's drawing, why not switch over?
"5. Some GEO-location hacks to assess what country you are coming from. Using the Perl Module Geo::IPfree, it is fairly simple to determine what country you are surfing from based on your IP address - try it now! ;-)"
.ca is in the United States, no? (-:
Ok, so I tried it..
Your Country Name : United States
Your Country Region : North America
Your Hostname : modemcable*CUT*.mc.videotron.ca
Odd that a
S
Has anyone noticed small oval shape above the house's chimney? Seems one got a good time with image processing software ;)
Marcin
TM
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