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Alek's Christmas Lights: Humbug
g00set writes "Alek's Christmas lights story was previously covered on Slashdot here, however the Denver Channel is now reporting that it was all a hoax: 'The Lafayette man said he accomplished the trickery by taking 12 "base" photographs of the house with lights on and off and then constructed a Web page that appeared to show lights going on and off when the Web visitor clicked.'"
So the guy said he did something on the web, and turned out he didnt. Isnt this the way most of the dot-com bubble companies operated?
NAH!
Is it fascism yet?
I'm more amused than anything else. It wouldn't make sense to be indignant over an April Fools-style joke.
You really HAVE to give it anyone that can pull this off, especially to /.ers.
Bravo, bravo...
clap, clap, clap, clap
I think this guy deserves mad props for pulling this off.
It's already hard to find someone who RTFA, imagine someone checking REALITY.
it's not in question any more.
now they know!
-pyrrho
So for three years running (and this Halloween?) this guy had millions of hits onto his site.
All the while he was raking in the dough from his Google AdWords banners.
I wonder how much money he has made.
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...
Not more than you need, just more than you want
Plus what about weather conditions? Plenty of local people must have seen the site. What about when it was raining or snowing and the webcam wasn't showing that?
It's like when little kids in the 3-6yo range walk up to a video game that's in attract mode and start playing with the joystick - a lot of times they'll think they're actually playing the game when it's just the demo running.
try { do() || do_not(); } catch (JediException err) { yoda(err); }
Except that he didn't lack it - go read his web page. It explains how he pulled it off, generating the faked images on the fly from a few pre-shot photos and perl.
Personally, I think it's a cool hack. Glad someone out there is still doing this stuff...
This is the voice of World Control. I bring you Peace.
IMHO, the hoax (and how he did the hoax) is actually more entertaining than if it had been the real thing. It's interesting to see his attention to detail (right down to fiddling with EXIF headers to make it look like it was generated by a webcam, rather than photos he took earlier).
Oolite: Elite-like game. For Mac, Linux and Windows
So you've got a well-deserved +3 Funny, and I've got no mod points, but I see no one has said "good job" and as such, let me:
Good job, man.
I agree....qualifies as a hack in my book. Required some techical skill, was harmless, and quite funny.
"We make our world significant by the courage of our questions and by the depth of our answers." Carl Sagan
I hate my HOA, but do I understand why it's there. When I was 12, someone was given the land next to my parents' house and they immediately plopped a trailer home down on it. Never mind the fact there were no hookups or anything, they just cleared some of the brush, put up an outhouse, and plopped their shitty trailer home on their new land.
Needless to say, property values plummeted overnight. It took a determined group of neighbors to buy out the guy and return our neighborhood to normalicy.
HOA's just take that and zoning laws a little further. Basically, no one can do anything that might devalue your property. Many people see their home as an investment, not just a place to live, and they welcome this. Of course, it means that you have to give up a bit of your freedom as well. Good HOA's aren't that restrictive, and just make sure that you don't put a car up on blocks in your front lawn and never cut the yard. More restrictive ones might tell you how often you're going to paint your house.
The main problem with HOA's is that they tend to get populated with exactly the wrong kind of people. Who runs for the HOA offices? People with too much free time that like to stick their noses in other people's business. This thought pattern is really hard to overcome and root out once it gets in there, and most people don't realize who's running until it's too late. The busybodies will form a voting block, and the rest of the neighborhood will be just disorganized enough to not be able to get them out. That's when things go to shit. Not really, because the neighborhood looks nice, but neighbors start hating neighbors, and those (like me) who get disgusted with it simply move it. The busybodies like it too much to move, and the new blood takes too long to figure out the HOA isn't their friends.
Christ. I'm ranting. Look, I hate my HOA. However, I understand that it's a great idea corrupted by misguided people. As much as I hate it, I would have serious reservations about moving into a neighborhood without one.
-------------------------------------------------
By restricting your neighbors freedom of expression so you can get a neighborhood of houses that all look exactly alike you think your life is better.
Personally I'd like to live next door to someone who is creative enough to paint his house strange colors. I want nothing to do with the neighborhoods I've seen where every house looks the same, down to the flowers in the garden out front. To each his own I guess.
(AdSense policies span more than one page.)
Actually, he may not be able to disclose the dollar amount he received, although I'm not sure how to interpret it and I don't feel like making the effort. Here, check out Item b from Google AdSenseTM Online Standard Terms and Conditions:
-j.