Slashdot Mirror
Linux Powers Controllable Christmas Lights for Charity
Santa Claus writes "Joe 'Zonker' Brockmeier's recent article at Linux.Com tells the hilarious story of
Alek's Controllable Christmas Lights. When he out'ed himself to the
Wall Street Journal, saying that it was a
simulation/hoax in 2004,
the mass media howled at being fooled while Slashdot simply said Humbug. Alek claims that he went legit in 2005, as confirmed by the Rocky Mountain News. Brockmeier did an on-site visit to actually see and report in detail how the system really works ... for real! For 2006, there are three D-Link DCS-6620G webcams providing live coverage of 15,000 Christmas Lights, plus giant inflatable Elmo, Santa, and Homer Simpson. X10 power technology allows web surfers to turn stuff on & off with a click of a mouse. You can also type in text for everyone to see on a laptop in Santa's Workshop Cam. This year over $15,000 has been raised for the University of Maryland Center for Celiac Research, as a result of the lights. Brockmeier and the Christmas FAQ says it is load-balanced across four dedicated 100 Mbps Apache/Linux servers running mod_perl." Linux.com and Slashdot are both owned by OSTG.
As a Slashdot Subscriber (highly recommended BTW), I saw this story in the "Mysterious Future" and needless to say, it is EMERGENCY ALERT on Komar.org as I'm sure Scotty will be saying shortly "Control Circuits threatening to overload Captain!" The four dedicated 100 Mbps Apache/Linux web servers (using mod_perl) handled a doubleheader of DIGG and FARK on December 13th and are already getting hammered ... but Slashdot could
be another level ... lets see how high the load factor goes on this snowy Christmas Eve.
/.'ers RTFA (hah!) since there
is ... uhhhhh ... a bit of history associated with my
"controllable" Christmas Lights ... ;-)
... OFF ... ON ... OFF ... ON ... etc.
... but raises
awareness/funds for the University of Maryland Center for Celiac Disease. This is something my kids
have, so it's personal for me ... so if you are feeling the Christmas
spirit and want to donate a few dollars, please do so at their site.
Zonker's article is excellent - highly recommend
People around the world are hammering it allready (Google Maps mish-mash) so I'll try to keep the web servers going while everyone turns the lights ON
Have fun with it and Merry Christmas to all,
alek
P.S. The web site is totally free
Hulk SMASH Celiac Disease
Wow! All these years I've been wasting my money using electricity to power my lights. Wish someone had told me about this earlier.
Saying your "phone ran out of batteries" is like saying your "car ran out of gas tanks".