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X10 Hallowe'en Display
Spic writes "I'm sure alot of us remember the Christmas light display using X10 that was up for last Christmas, well, the same guy has a Hallowe'en display up. Pretty neat idea. You can even vote for your favorite politcal candidate: Bush, Kerry, or The Incredible Hulk. Looks like he also anticpated our arrival."
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I like the javascript alert.. he's like a kid who touched an oven element.. he remembers last time wasnt fun..
2 hours till the controls come online, wonder if he'll last..
Geez, shouldn't they be using X11 by now? I mean, how long has it been out?
(Joking)
Actually, his "Incoming Slashdotter" Java Pop up indicates he's fairly well prepared.
RTFA
...could you please explain what the Christmas thing was about?
Looks like he didn't prepare very well, only 3 posts into the thread and his server turned into a christmas goose.
First rule of holes; When in one, stop digging.
because since the site isnt dead, all the /.ers are busy being wowed by the lights instaead of posting....
/.er 1:woah man, pretty lights
/.er 2:and controlled by X10!
/.er 1: Duuuuuuuude
/.er 2: maybe we should post....
/.er 1: pretty lights!!
"goodbye and hello, as always" ~Prince Corwin, from Zelazny's Amber series
250,000 lights: $100,000
2,500 kw of electricity: Who knows?
Slashdotting some guy's house for no readily apparent reason: Priceless
For revenge on your boss, there's cash, for everything else, there's mastercard.
Oh shit, you're serious.
Perhaps I sound like an insufferable n00b, perhaps I sound like I'm too lazy to do a google search (Umm, guilty) and perhaps I don't actually remember this guy's Christmas display, but what is this X10 thing?
There was a message saying control would be activated in 2 hours or so, does that mean we can control the decorations from the webcam? If so, what can be controlled?
Annoying questions aside, the "Incoming Slashdotter" message was cool. Nice to be part of an internet locust swarm.
Yup...
Looks like he also anticpated our arrival.
Umm, with his webserver being slashdotted after less then 10 comments, I think it's safe to say he didn't expect our arrival. Anyone got a cache?
The "Insert Quote Here" line is almost as predictable as inserting an actual quote.
http://66.102.7.104/search?q=cache:Ma6sL9h3OMYJ:ww w.komar.org/cgi-bin/halloween_webcam+&hl=en&lr=&cl ient=firefox-a&strip=1
poor poor home server.
Actually, his "Incoming Slashdotter" Java Pop up indicates he's fairly well prepared.
If you build it, they will come indeed.
Google cache page to save the website from being /.ed:
Christmas lights
Sig cancelled due to lack of interest
This is a pretty cool setup. Not very different from the other online controls for stuff the webcam is watching.
Although i do like being able to change the webcam pan/zoom setting. I have not seen that before
But i don't really look for this stuff.
Never Smoke A Banana.
>Looks like he also anticpated our arrival.
"Anticipation is only half the battle" -- Old Slashdot saying
After all:
... was WAY too early, and nowhere near as juicy, as we've come to expect.Oh, well - guess I'll have to wait for this year's slashdot halloween costume poll http://slashdot.org/pollBooth.pl?qid=1007
Wonder what this year's poll is going to look like..."Replaced one X10 switch module that felt warm, but otherwise the various hardware, circuit breakers, and web server (go Apache/Perl!) are hanging in there" Felt warm...hehehehe, lets light the thing up! in 2 hours now we'll have some major slashdottage.
Man, I sure got that beat. Here's an X11 Halloween display!& btnG=Google+Search ;)
mozilla http://images.google.com/images?q=halloween&hl=en
Seriously, though, this guy impresses the crap out of me. The most I ever did was turn my bedroom lights on and off over the Internet and freak my parents out.
--TheOrangeSquid Is it any wonder things seem so awry? We swim in a sea of confusion and don't have to think to survive
but wouldent it be more intelligent to NOT put perl and other dynamic elements on your webpage if you are expecting a ./ effect? I would have also expected him to invest in a more commericalized system for camera control like NuSpectra They are pretty cool
Here's a MirrorDot. As for the Christmas thing, it seems to be a yearly tradition.
MirrorDot has the page with the pictures.
~Jay
Wow....the slashdot editors edited something. Amazing. Now can someone tell me why?
"X10 Halloween Display" -> "X10 Hallowe'en Display". Same change in the article text.
Huh?
WASTE - The Secure P2P
Trick or Treat, Trick or Treat, give us something good to read!
Slashdot effect - it's sorta like having 10 million little devils and witches showing up at your door, when all you got left to give out is canned food.
That's not fair! The Hulk is taking votes away from Kerry!
I remember when legal used to mean lawful, now it means some kind of loophole. - Leo Kessler
"Looks like he also anticpated our arrival."
No one expects the Slashdot Inquisition!
this Friday he got Farked, and today he's getting Slashdotted...
this guy must love the Internets now!
P.S. The pop up is an HTML body alert=message based on the referrer
Hulk SMASH Celiac Disease
I noticed that the webcam is using quite a long exposure to compensate for the low light levels - people on the sidewalk appear very blurred. Even so, there is almost no visible graininess aside from compression artifacts. Obviously this is not a cheap webcam.
Karma: Segmentation fault (tried to dereference a null post)
Amazingly enough it wasn't down like it usually is.
e en_webcam
http://www.komar.org.nyud.net:8090/cgi-bin/hallow
Plus you can see which Coral server grabbed the content.
For some reason, I suspended my usual paranoia and clicked the "find out about you" link. It got correctly that I am browsing using Mozilla and linux. It messed up about guessing where I am browsing from although it did get my isp correctly.
Is there an easy way I can spoof this info? Could I , for instance make it look like I was using Netscape on Windows 3.1 in Ulan Bator? I would enjoy messing with nosy people's minds a lot.
According to all polls including this guy's webcam, Bush is more popular than Kerry. This bothers me. Hulk is clearly winning, as expected.
Often wrong but never in doubt.
I am Jack9.
Everyone knows me.
Can you tell when he got slashdoted?
superman runs linux
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halloween
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Well, apparently not. The site's slagged.
Tis working a bit faster :)
Your hair look like poop, Bob! - Wanker.
He wanted to know why they changed it from "Halloween" to "Hallowe'en". The Wikipedia only makes one mention of the alternate spelling, and gives no indication whatsoever as to WHY it's an alternate spelling or what (if any) significance it has versus the non-apostrophed form.
Anyone got a cache?
What good is that going to do you when the site is supposed to be interactive?
Bookmark it and come back to it in a day or so.
Get your Unix fortune now!
I think it's fairly safe to say that those with a sense of humor (Hulk votes) would vote for kerry over bush ;-)
Seriously, it should be a close race, the polls are usually polling likely voters, and for the first time in over a decade we've got a major rash of young people registering to vote, and as long as the Democrats continue to register more new voters, we'll be fine.
In the end it will boil down to voter turnout. If there's high voter turnout the dems will win, if it's low, then the republicans will win.
Remember the Gmail Machine, the page that generated a random number and it if matched the correct one you "won" a gmail invite? That page was PHP and for every hit it locked the counter file, did the increment and unlocked, that page did approx 7M views in the 8ish hours it lived on my server. When it was mentioned on the screen savers they thought they killed the box, I had apache setup to throttle max connections and the load avg never went above 3.6 serving 950+ pages/sec. The 28Mb/s throughput did have my hosting co contact me to make sure I didn't get rooted though.
The last I heard the guy that was doing it couldn't find any suckers, er, hosts to run it for him.
Hallowe'en derives from Hallow's E'en.
Hallow's E'en derives from Hallow's Even.
Hallow's Even derives from Hallow's Eve.
Hallow's Eve is the day before All Hallow's Day (or All Saint's Day) - the day that celebrates the saints that have no day of their own (eg, Saint Patrick, Saint George, Saint Valentine).
Useless fact #37 for the day. Enjoy.
In theory there is no difference between theory and practice.
In practice, however, there is.
Funny no longer earns you any karma;
so the new thing is to mod up things that are really funny with something other than funny; underrated is typically the best option (it maintains the previous "funny" tag but ups the score and ups the karma) but not everyone got the memo.
That being said, it'd be pretty fresh if my halloween display next year could indeed run Xwindows... or at least Xbiff and Xeyes.
In the future, I would want to not be isolated from my friends in the Space Station.
It would be a very neat idea, if Christmas (and any other holiday) displays weren't FUCKING LAME-ASS OBNOXIOUSNESS. See?
His house is about 5 miles from where I'm sitting (in downtown Boulder, CO) ... sounds like a fun sidetrip on my way back home - I think the real-time updates will look better than the website.
2510 Blue Heron Circle Lafayette, CO
HIV Crosses Species Barrier... into Muppets
Spic writes "I'm sure alot of us remember [snip]
'A lot' is two words.
Sincerely,
The 'a lot' grammar Nazi
Aparantly, not only does he have an insane amount of web controlled lights, his children are upside down as well.
Remeber what happened in august 2003?
A morning without coffee is like something without something else.
how to make some quick $$$$
/.'d and stick some adsense on your webpage!
Get
Slashdot taught me how to use the preview button!
Google doesn't cache images so clicking that link will still put a lot of load on the server and take it down.
If it was an all-text page, that would help, but this is a webcam.
What kind of dummy could have moderated the comment above as informative? It's not anyone claryfing a political subtlety. It's funny, you frigging moron! What the hell is wrong with you people?
To do list for Windows
guess I'll have to check back next week though to fool with it. Thanks for your efforts, I played with your christmas stuff last year. TOOO much fun!
didja see this browser in your stats called "woo woo!"
what is that???
Do you not understand EOM?
Ok, first I considered the facts...
- the guy has a big public display of lights at his house, twice a year
- he encourages zillions of people see his house & publishes it on the web
- he publishes detailed pictures, the address, and lan/lon coordinates of his house.
You would think he'd want people to come see his house, right?
I saw he lived pretty close to where I was so I decided to visit - I thought it would be neat to post a video of what the house looked like as people voted.
so I drive there only to find, IT'S A GATED COMMUNITY!!
I got to the head of Blue Heron, and there's a gate that closes at 7 pm. I could call and ask to be let in, but it was 9:15pm on a Sunday night and I know this guy has two little kids, so I don't bother calling - it would be rude. As a faithful slashdotter, I would have tried the "911" entry code, but I saw there was a special key for emergency personnel, so I didn't try (plus, they put they keypad in a hard-to-reach place)
<RANT>What is it with gated communities?! I don't see how crime is much of a problem in this place because it's pretty much alone in the countryside. It's not like there is a crackhouse next door. And, since most burglaries occur before 7pm, the gate won't help much. And, if you want to commit some crime at night, just get there before 7pm, wait, and then make your getaway whenever you want -- the gates will always let you out.</RANT>
I'm sure he's a nice guy, but I think he should reconsider where he lives, or push the homeowner's association to remove the gate.
So, anyway, don't try to go there. You're not welcome... unless you come before 7pm, and then sit on their lawn until dark.
HIV Crosses Species Barrier... into Muppets
If it's not Consolidated Lint, it's just fuzz!
So they went from the current, modern spelling to a slightly more archaic one. Why not go all the way and replace "Halloween" with "Hallow's Eve"?
http://www.komar.org/halloween/2004/stats/analog/d ailysofar/latest.html#browsum
I found that more interesting.
There goes the green party splitting the vote again
Over the past few years I lived in suburban areas (as opposed to downtown living) and noticed that hallowe'en lighting schemes on houses were becoming more popular. I don't get it. The spirit of Hallowe'en is to frighten people, or at least to pretend that you are trying to frighten people. A midnight graveyard lit with neon wouldn't be scary (except in regards to taste). Having your house brightly lit with orange lights isn't scary, not even to the wimpiest of little kids. Darkness is scary. A few well placed lights throwing ominous shadows is scary. Having your house lit up like it's Christmas is not scary, unless you have an unnatural fear of Christmas.
RTFM; please, I beg you.
Can be seen here. :).
4500 bulbs.
He certainly went to a lot of effort
I fell on the floor, when i read the popup.
I imagined him riding a space ship with "webserver" written on the side in red and wearing a helmet.
The lunatic is in my head
Gosh, don't be so european. Listen, - recently I attended a conference from http://www.greenpeace-energy.de/ and of course they made the assertion that there is no time anymore for jokes like this, which appears to be inherently installed especially in the north-american culture. Its the same as the French do light the Eiffel-tower. I know that its a way of decorating, part of this culture and folk-art but the way of expression can change over years. I doubt, that the Munich October-fest was that big 100 years ago! It grew, but it will decline certainly one day. Nothing can stay for ever, cultures not and energy...., - ahh you know it. Things and phenomena of culture can oscillate in their pheanotype. They can disapear or having rennaissances, but they are certainly not cemented to last for ever!
Look at the Halloween Webcam web stats pages. Specifically the when the Slashdot crowd hit. Scroll down to the Browser Summary section, Mozilla tops IE by 3 times!
Kevin
"It's not the cough that carries you off, it's the coffin they carry you off in" O. Nash
We've talked browser stats here before, but this is likely more accurate than a poll:
57.36%: Mozilla
27.46%: MSIE
5.88%: Safari
4.23%: Opera
for me, Mozilla (Firefox) just works. It is ready for prime time, general use. We may be early adopters, but 57% is awesome!
1. Build insanely funky display controlled by X10 /. /.ing
2. Get 'a friend' to submit to
3. Comment repeatedly about server loads and how you are handling
4. KARMA!!!11
Better yet, tell us how Hallow means "All Saints"
I don't read or respond to AC posts
Happpy Birthday is still Copyright. Now Slashdot is gonna get a DMCA Takedown!
Free Software: Like love, it grows best when given away.
And as noted, I was driving to work a few days ago, and I heard on the radio one of those "Bud Lights Presents Real Men of Genius" commercials for "Mr. Halloween Decorations Man" - needless to say, it struck a chord with me! ;-)
I've Google'd to the end of the Internet, but can't seem to find this. So if anyone out there can find a web site with it will Email me the URL, I'll be happy to lockout the Halloween Webcam for your dedicated use for a couple of minutes - swing it left, swing it right, zoom it in, zoom it out, and turn all the lights on and off - whooopeeee!!! And perhaps more importantly, you'll benefit all your fellow surfers who really DO need to hear this important commercial message! ;-)
click here for more info ... and Mr. Restroom Toilet Paper Refiller is always worth a listen! ;-)
Hulk SMASH Celiac Disease