Alek's Christmas Lights Webcam is Back 205
millert continues "You can Email Santa page and he does respond to Email inquiries. Alek is already thinking ahead for Christmas 2005 ...
The picture quality on his cool webcam pictures seems much better than a run-of-the-mill webcam; the image quality under low-light conditions is surprisingly good. In question D-5 of his FAQ, he says he has it under non-disclosure and all he can say is that it is a "640x480 pixel image using 1/2.7" sensor - size matters when it comes to pixels" and he is right about that -- this is one of the reasons the pictures of Mars from the Spirit Rover were so good. Even more interesting is the info in the jpegs' EXIF header (as displayed by ImageMagick's identify utility. There's quite a bit of information in there, including a reference to a company that provided IP-based video security for the 2004 Olympics and a comment saying 'do NOT release to marketing droids' Fortunately, this is Slashdot.
Slashdot crushed it in 2002 and 2003 -- will the 3rd time be the charm for Alek?"
Subscribers killed it (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Subscribers killed it - Alek comments on that! (Score:5, Informative)
Mr. Christmas Lights comments ... (Score:5, Interesting)
We'll see how well everything works tonight - expect things to be nuts and we'll see if mod_perl can save the day on the web server - fortunately, the analog stuff is throttled at one/second! ;-)
I actually turned things on early tonight, but
I may need to disable if the load gets too high. For those
interested in data, I'll be updating my Christmas 2004 Slashdot Effect Analysis [komar.org] and
I'll provide some followup here.
P.S. WRT JPEG/EXIF stuff: ummmmmm ... let me get back to you on that one!
Re:Mr. Christmas Lights comments ... (Score:2)
Re:Mr. Christmas Lights comments ... (Score:4, Funny)
Well, seeing as it's loading pathetically slowly right now, just after the story appeared to non-subscribers, I'd say the answer is 'no' mod_perl did not save the day.
Re:Mr. Christmas Lights comments ... (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Mr. Christmas Lights comments ... (Score:2)
Re:Mr. Christmas Lights comments ... (Score:2)
www.komar.org: Connection refused
Pop goes the weasel. :)
Re:Mr. Christmas Lights comments ... (Score:5, Funny)
MOD PARENT up FUNNY! (Score:5, Insightful)
Actually, ssh is quite responsive - it's just the darn MaxClients limit of 256 I'm bumping into - plus I restarted httpd twice. I think if folks would not open up every link in the article, it would help - every time I've check, Apache Status is showing all 256 requests - I just bumped the TIMEOUT numbers down a bit, so people may see timeouts sooner, but this should release some child process slots for folks.
HECK - this is looking good - lets turn it on!
Re:MOD PARENT up FUNNY! (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:MOD PARENT up FUNNY! (Score:4, Informative)
Re:MOD PARENT up FUNNY! (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:MOD PARENT up FUNNY! (Score:2)
Anyway, it's 1.47am here, so I'm off. Good luck with the
Re:MOD PARENT up FUNNY! (Score:3, Informative)
Re:MOD PARENT up FUNNY! (Score:2)
The server's responding FAST now, like as if nobody was even hitting it. Got any updated realtime usage stats for us, Alek?
Re:MOD PARENT up FUNNY! (Score:2)
Put "KeepAlive Off" in http.conf and you don't run into the maxclients nearly so fast. Browsers like to stick around and eat up and idle connection unless they are forced closed. I found this one of the single best config changes on one of my extremely high volume servers that was coming nowhere near its cpu, memory, or bandwidth usage limits.
Also "Timeout 120" or less (default is 300) can help.
Re:MOD PARENT up FUNNY! (Score:3, Informative)
alek
P.S. The Timeout was/is set to 20 seconds - yea, a little agressive,
KeepAlive OFF (Score:2)
Glad you noticed a difference. I am curious to know how well just this setting would allow other sites to survive a slashdoting
Re:Mr. Christmas Lights comments ... (Score:2)
Unfortunately, one/second is not nearly fast enough to flash out obscene messages in Morse code. :-)
Re:Mr. Christmas Lights comments ... (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Mr. Christmas Lights comments ... (Score:2)
Re:Mr. Christmas Lights comments ... (Score:2)
Re:Mr. Christmas Lights comments ... (Score:2)
Having written
Re:Mr. Christmas Lights comments ... (Score:2)
The front-end proxy is very helpful with dynamic content because it handles buffering for clients and lets your mod_perl processes move on immediately. This is also explained in the docs.
Glad to see people using mod_perl for fun stuff. Keep up the good work.
Re:Mr. Christmas Lights comments ... (Score:2)
GREAT explanation - I HAVE looked at the mod_perl docs briefly before, but see that this would be well worth some time - boy, if there is ONE thing I wish Santa would bring for me this year, it would be a six-pack of time ...
So how long (Score:5, Funny)
Re:So how long (Score:2, Funny)
Alek's Christmas Lights Webcam is Back (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Alek's Christmas Lights Webcam is Back (Score:3, Funny)
Drive me insane. (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Drive me insane. (Score:3, Interesting)
James
Re:Drive me insane. (Score:5, Informative)
-Restil
karma? who cares (Score:2)
Re:karma? who cares (Score:2, Funny)
It's now "Festive Greetings"
Re:karma? who cares (Score:2)
fire (Score:2, Funny)
the server (Score:4, Funny)
That's awsome (Score:3, Interesting)
"...and his analysis of the Slashdot effect" (Score:3, Funny)
But not just that! (Score:5, Funny)
Not only can we pan/zoom the webcam and control the 17,000 christmas lights - NO! We can also burn his house down by letting his web server die a horrible heat death.
Talk about an arsonist's dream.
/. Effect? (Score:5, Funny)
She cannae take anymore Jim!
Survive the slashdot effect? I think not...
Re:/. Effect? (Score:2)
Mister Scott, you have all of 15 seconds to bring those warp engines back.....on.....line!
I don't see... (Score:5, Funny)
Talk about timing... (Score:2)
thousands of people sending commands at once.... (Score:3, Funny)
Dude, you just put this link on Slashdot? Understanding undershmanding, you had better hope they have strobe-induced seizure insurance.
A New Slashdot Effect...? (Score:2, Interesting)
But yeah.. I'm sure what with all the slashdotters there that the neighbors are probably going to be seeing a nice strobelight-like effect. Scare the hell out of anyone who's driving by because of the chaotic patterns of the lights turning on and
Re:A New Slashdot Effect...? (Score:5, Funny)
Ever so slowly, slashdot creeps closer to the potential to take human life.
Re:A New Slashdot Effect...? (Score:2, Funny)
which will probably happen before a slashdot user ever creates human life.
Re:A New Slashdot Effect...? (Score:2)
In related news, (Score:5, Funny)
an entire flock of Colorado geese are completely disoriented tonight. They have been waddling around bumping into garbage bins and parked cars without rhyme or reason.
This odd sighting is being reported only blocks away from the residence of the woman who was inadvertently hypnotized by her electricity meter earlier today.
Re:In related news, (Score:2)
Firefox is only at 13%? (Score:4, Interesting)
lynx for webcam sites? (Score:5, Funny)
If 87% of slashdot readers are trying to use lynx to view a site with a webcam feed, we've got bigger problems.
Re:Firefox is only at 13%? (Score:2)
That's how I used to view porn during the late 90's.
Scripts. (Score:2, Funny)
#!/bin/bash
while [1]
do
lynx -dump (Whatever GET request to turn lights on) >
lynx -dump (Whatever GET request to turn lights off) >
done
Re:Scripts. (Score:2)
Computer controlled lights in Australia (Score:5, Interesting)
A good friend of mine recently completed work on a 6 thousand light computer controlled light display.
His website has all the details on how it was built. Along with pictures. [on.net]Custom built all the electronics, and wrote a number of custom programs to control the lights.
Best thing is? Being able to sit on the street with a laptop and terminal service into his light controlling computer and control the lights :D
Great fun for the neighbourhood.Re:Computer controlled lights in Australia (Score:2)
...And his web site is still up and running! Wait until slashdotters turn their attention to his web server...
Light Control (Score:2)
He took green, yellow and red lights and arranged them in 16 rows of 16 colums where the bottom 8 light blocks of each column were green, the last 8 were divided between 4 yellow and 4 red. The columns divided among the frequency range he was going for. He built a piece of hardware to control on and off and mated it with some software to take Winamp music and read the frequency and power data and adjusted the lights accordingly to make his ro
Re:Light Control (Score:2, Informative)
So much for that (Score:2)
At least now he knows what he wants for christmas... a new server.
Re:So much for that (Score:2)
Hulk? (Score:2)
Here's the pic I'm referencing. [drirc.net]
12 Days of Christmas (Score:2, Funny)
24 million dollars from Nigeria
On the second day of Christmas my true love gave to me:
Two Rolex watches
On the third day of Christmas my true love gave to me:
One penis enlargement
On the fourth day of Christmas my true love gave to me:
Three better orgasms
On the fifth day of Christmas my true love gave to me:
18 Viagara pills
On the sixth day of Christmas my true love gave to me:
Two bottles of Cialis
On the seventh day of Christmas my t
Phone messages for Alek (Score:5, Funny)
Phone messages for Alek:
"Please prepare your server for a slashdotting."
"You have 10 minutes to prepare your server for slashdotting"
"You have 5 minutes to prepare your server for slashdotting"
"You have 1 minute to prepare your server for slashdotting"
"Please extinguish your server".
No luck on mirrodot (Score:4, Funny)
Energy bill (Score:4, Insightful)
Now, let's see if I can turn these lights off.
Re:Energy bill (Score:2, Funny)
Re:Energy bill (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Energy bill (Score:2)
Is there any way we can
Re:Energy bill (Score:2)
The usage of external Christmas lights is increasing here in the UK as well. When I was a young 'un the biggest public display of Christmas decorations was a string of lights in someone's window, but these days people seem to go all out with giant inflatable Santas, terrible flashing lights and little statues of snowmen and penguins.
The only reason I can see for it is to show off to the rest of the world that you have quite a big disposable income. I don't participate, since I don't have a great deal of it
Re:Energy bill (Score:2)
The most annoying bit is the flashing - why is it tha
Re:Energy bill (Score:2)
Re:Energy bill (Score:2)
Re:Energy bill (Score:2, Interesting)
Well, if you consider the introduction of the Christmas tree in the early 20th century long ago, I guess.
I guess we're considered exotic or something. Fancy that.
An expert is an ordinary man away from home. Brought a college girl over from Prague once, one of the most beautiful cities in the world.
All she kept saying driving away from JFK was "Oooooooo, it's so pretty."
You underst
Re:Energy bill (Score:2)
Re:Energy bill (Score:2)
(I grew up in Amsterdam)
-bs
I wonder why.... (Score:3, Funny)
Heh (Score:4, Funny)
When I go to that page, I get "connection refused." Yep, his analysis is right on the money.
You can even do this at home, if your site isn't cool enough, with the slashdot simulator.
I have an idea! (Score:5, Funny)
ip_to_country.pl (Score:2)
Your Hostname : xxxxxxxxxx.zen.co.uk
Slashdotted a house (Score:5, Funny)
We've slashdotted NASA, gameboys, and entire countries, but is this the first time we've slashdotted a house?!
The geeks strike again from their hidden rebel basements!
Re:Slashdotted a house (Score:2)
Ways Geeks Celebrate Christmas (Score:5, Funny)
11. Mountain Dew-nog
10. Printing out "One Year of Free Computer Service" certificates to give to the family.
9. Designing elf-killing levels for your favorite FPS.
8. Explaining to children how it would be physically impossible for Santa to deliver all the presents.
7. Wear mistletoe hat and keep fingers crossed.
6. Devise a computer-controlled system to detect and prevent household members from trying to peek into their presents before Christmas.
5. Put a santa hat on your avatar.
4. Change the blue neon lights in the case to flashing red and green.
3. Decorating the tree with SDRAM and CPUs burned out from your last overclocking experiment.
2. Rewriting Christmas carols in Tolkien's Elvish.
1. Programming the christmas lights to flash out "I hate this holiday of unbridled consumerism" in binary.
Re:Ways Geeks Celebrate Christmas (Score:2)
Re:Ways Geeks Celebrate Christmas (Score:2)
The irony... (Score:3, Funny)
Re:The irony... (Score:2)
With apologies to Theodor Geisel (Score:5, Funny)
And he made a quick Slashdot link and a post.
And he chuckled, and clucked, "What a great Grinchy trick!
"With this link and this post, I'll Slashdot Saint Nick!"
I never expected to get through (Score:2)
An idea for Alek to make some money and have fun (Score:3, Interesting)
If you organised the lights so that some kinds of funky patterns could be made via the web, you could make some good money with music, drinks and a grill outside for people who turn up to watch the show.
We did this in 1999 and 2000 (details) (Score:2)
It was based on FreeBSD.
1999 details:
http://www.757.org/main/projects/xmas99/
Used Sealevel DIO cards for digital output
2000 details:
http://www.757.org/main/projects/xmas00/
Used breadboard ISA card for digital output
It was tricky because broadband wasn't availible widely. I was planning to do it this year, but so many other projects hit I didn't have time. People in the neighborhood were mentioning it around Halloween.
I was
How do windows webservers handle /. effect? (Score:2)
Re:yawn (Score:5, Funny)
Re:FYI, Alek posts on /. as (Score:2)
Just kidding dude.... (Score:2)
Re:FYI, Alek posts on /. as (Score:2)
Re:FYI, Alek posts on /. as (Score:2)
Whoops, forgot to hit post anonymously, so allow me to add:
Seriously now, have a heart. This is a single Xeon 2.4GHz with only (I think) a T1 line, so if he does actually manage to even half stand up to the whirlwind of slashdotters, then deep kudos to him...
Re:Dramatic Pause (Score:2, Funny)
What do you think caused that big blackout last year?