Linux-Powered Christmas Display Puts Rudolph To Shame

xmas2003 writes "Over at Linux.com, Zonker writes about Alek's Controllable Christmas Lights for Celiac Disease. This annual Internet tradition uses a hi/low-tech combo of LAMP'ed Redhat Web Servers, a 7+ year old Thinkpad running Ubuntu for the X10 control, and an old-school webpage design that could be politely described as Web 0.0 — wait until you see the animated cursor — D'OH! The site is free (and totally fun) as it also raises awareness and donations for Celiac Disease — over $70,000 to the University of Maryland. Nifty pictures of the crazy christmas display can be seen on the Christmas Blog (notice Clifford Stoll's The Cuckoo's Egg in post #220) plus watch videos of it in action with comedic history. Nothing quite says Christmas like a giant, inflatable HULK wearing a Santa Hat... along with three wise men of Elmo, SpongeBob, and Homer Simpson. The Slashdot Effect of turning 21,000 Christmas lights ON & OFF this evening should provide quite a Christmas Eve show to Alek's neighbors... and also the International Space Station."

Comments

The site loads faster than Slashdot

[Anonymous Coward]

Old school rules.

Re:The site loads faster than Slashdot

[IANAAC]

Old school rules.

Maybe. Doesn't mean you know what to do once you're on the page. That page was just painful.

Re:The site loads faster than Slashdot

[Anonymous Coward]

It's about a technological implementation of extreme tackiness. I say he is right on target with the web site.

Re:The site loads faster than Slashdot

[Ethanol-fueled]

I spent my holidays lying to my kids, for the first time, about the existence of Santa Claus.

I sure hope they don't get their feelings hurt about why Santa has unlimited gifts, but he still chose to give Johnny across the street his own PS3 while my kids only got a shared, second-hand Nintendo DS. Someday in a few years my kids will hate me, but that's okay because, until then, I will lie to them and say Santa Claus exists while encouraging awkward materialism. Then the kids will experience a huge disappointment years later figuring out that Santa isn't real, possibly not trusting me for the rest of their lives, and I'll say LOL YA SRY SNTA AINT REAL. HIGH-FIVE, TROLLFACE!

I feel sorry for all those black kids in the hood who perceive Santa as a white guy, then they wonder why they get government cheese while their white peers get thousand-dollar gifts. What could possibly go wrong?

Re:The site loads faster than Slashdot

[AngryDeuce]

Old school rules.

Yeah, sometimes it really does. Unfortunately this is not one of those times. Now I need to bleach my eyes...

Re:The site loads faster than Slashdot

[hairyfeet]

Yeah but they might end up with a memory that will last a lifetime! ya know how I found out there was no Santa? 1976 I hear a noise in the living room and snek down in my PJs to see Santa....only to see my dad cursing like a sailor with a Huffy Evel Knievel bike in like 300 pieces around him and the instructions taped to the wall. i can still hear him going "Stupid damned not put together /blam!/ who the hell built this stupid ass /slam/ where the hell does this go?".

But that and the gift my grandfather got me for my birthday that year taught me that what matters is family. I wanted an Electroman but apparently 1976 technology was pretty much shit in toys because he made no less than 4 round trips to the USAFB PX trying to get one that worked for more than a minute before giving up. First regular batteries...white smoke. Then alkaline batteries..white smoke...then duracells...white smoke...before finally he tried to use some no name brand...white smoke and sizzle. Finally he was like "How about a nice pinball machine instead?" . He must have racked up 200 miles on his car just trying to get a unit that would function for more than a couple of minutes.

'Christmas Blog' appears to link back in time.

[Anonymous Coward]

Annoying tiled background, animated gifs, comic sans, horrible layout - I thought people stopped making websites like this?

Re:'Christmas Blog' appears to link back in time.

[malraid]

Love the cursor animated gif! Top of the line 90s design, baby!

Yeah!

[Svenne]

Backslashdotted!

Re:Yeah!

[bejiitas_wrath]

Windows can use mount points as well silly, you can mount a drive to a folder and then remove the drive letter, leaving you with the mount point that is just another folder like Linux. You need to learn a little more about computers before spouting BS. Did mummy forget your Christmas present.?

Re:Yeah!

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, but it's ghetto and hackish. It's not transparent either. It causes sharing permission hell if a drive is mounted as the subfolder of a shared folder. Nothing near as clean as smooth as a Linux (POSIX?) filesystem mount.

easter mini-eggs

[Anonymous Coward]

load the site in Opera

Re:easter mini-eggs

[SomePgmr]

I got "you're using a Droid, they rule!"

I'm not.

It's melting!

[wbr1]

The site has gone from blinking 'Server Overtemp' to 'Server Meltdown!'
I think /. is killing it:(
Don't forget to donate if you can .. Merry x-Mas all!

What?

[Mr Z]

No Hamster Dance integration?

Re:All you negative people...

[MarkRose]

I'm curious what fund raising for celiac disease is truly needed. As someone with it, it's as simple as not eating gluten, and that's as simple as not eating grains (they're not good for you anyway). The only trouble is eating out or with otherwise unlabelled food.

Re:All you negative people...

[ExtremeSupreme]

I knew someone who developed an allergy or celiac disease (can't remember which) in her 20s. The solution for her was just not to eat wheat, her life didn't seem impacted all that much otherwise. Hopefully all the money is going towards research and not his kids!

Anyways, as an aside, she had a reaction to HAM. They put wheat in EVERYTHING these days, geez ;) HAM people. We're all eating random frankenfoods.

Re:All you negative people...

[MarkRose]

So, I have celiac disease.

I eat at restaurants often, though what I can eat from the menu is often very limited.
Yes, I can eat at friends' houses. They known I can't have gluten, and never was there nothing I could eat.
I've never been to Asia, but much Asian cuisine is gluten free.

I cook about half my meals. Of the ones I don't, they're either at restaurants where I know the ingredients are safe, or meals that require no cooking (raw food).
I buy very little prepared food. It was never healthy in the first place, never mind the price.

I react pretty strongly to trace amounts of gluten. I buy only natural peanut butter (ingredients: peanuts, salt), french fries, corn chips, and yogurt. Chocolate is tricky as it very often contains wheat as a sweetener. I read the ingredient lists on everything.

Office pizza parties? They order a pizza with a gluten-free crust for me. It doesn't taste as good, but I eat it to be sociable.
Birthdays? Well, I just don't eat cake.

I've given up on beer. I do miss Guinness. Sake is fine (unless it's been flavoured). I can't have the soy sauce at restaurants, but I have wheat/gluten-free soy sauce at home. Sushi can be tricky. Sashimi is great. I no longer eat waffles.

I eat lots of eggs. They're a fantastic food. There's no need to eat them in an English muffin.

Souffle I never ate anyway.

Pudding is another thing I've left aside. There is rice pudding, but I don't miss it enough to bother.

On average I spend five hours per week in the kitchen. I can't afford to eat out all the time, and I prefer the more nutritious food I eat at home.

I feel vastly healthier not eating wheat, and eating far fewer grains. Half of it is from no longer suffering from the immunological condition. The other half is from changing my diet to largely vegetables, meat, and fat for energy and aware from bulk carbohydrates. I eat a lot of delicious food.

How much of an impact does celiac have on my life? Day to day, it's not even a nuisance: I simply eat healthy food. At restaurants it's a small annoyance, but there is almost always something I can eat. I just ask.