X10 Xmas Light Control with Pan and Zoom

zzxc writes "Last year, slashdot mentioned Alek Komarnitsky's 2002 Christmas Light display with the ability to turn ON and OFF each zone of lights. This year, he has added the ability to pan and zoom the camera in the web control, which works from 5-12 MST. You can select zoom from 1-5x, pan horizontally and vertically by selecting the angle, as well as turn each zone of lights ON or OFF. He also has sensors that tell you the current temperature, humidity, if it detects stars (vs clouds), and more. However after last year's 22,000 web controlled lights, he's "burnt out", putting up less than 4,000 lights. Last year, his lights pulled 78.6 amps of current. This year, he is only pulling about 14.7 amps. Also, last year his home T1 line was completely saturated by all the press attention. This year, he's ready. (Note that this is not referring to X10 wireless video cameras, but to power control devices using the x10 protocol.)"

Obligatory

I didn't see the answer to the question everyone is asking: can you pan far enough to see the girl in the bikini by the pool?

Gotta Love his Javascript popup for that link

"Incoming Slashdot`er - Maximum Power to Web Server!"

Hit the site

Love the "Incoming Slashdotter, Maximum power" message!

"The #1 non-adult related webcam!

Making it 10 trillionth overall" - Simpsons.
Seriously, though, I'd bet that this site would do really well if on xmas eve, santa showed up and deposited presents, and then did a pole dance or something.

Gratuitous linkage

Do [do.com] we [we.com] need [need.com] a [a.com] link [link.com] to [to.com] everything [everything.com] that [that.com] caught [caught.com] the [the.com] posters [posters.com] eye [eye.com] ? [questionmark.com]

Now you've done it!

You've gone and slashdotted the most common words in the english language! Now what are we going to do?

Who cares?

What's the big deal? What was wrong with the good, old-fashioned throw-some-lights-in-the-bushes-and-in-the-gutters light scheme? Now, everyone's house either looks like the front yard of a church or a disco roller-arena from the 70s. Its John Travolta meets Jesus.

Hehehe....

This year, he's ready.

Do I hear a challenge?

Re:Hehehe....

Also of note.. on the site he mentions "when/if the Slashdot crowd comes..." Yup, that's asking for it. I think the article should be reposted when the lights are active. Heck, post it daily until the lights are down. What's Slashdot without a good dupe?

questions i gotta ask

Isn't this a little dangerous? I mean, putting all that light out there, couldn't an airplane mistake his house for a runway?

And who pays this guy's electricity bill?

So what if I'm jealous. Let me be bitter. :)

Re:questions i gotta ask

couldn't an airplane mistake his house for a runway?

We can only hope.

-- The Grinch

Children

It appears his children were born upside down. I think doing the Christmas light is his way of coping with the pain and anguish.

X10 Camera Linux Drivers

I did the same sort of thing. Hooked up the x10 and had the little cracker control a power module. Used the php x10 stuff and people could turn off the camera at will.

The driver which I help write is working under linux. The controls of the camera are not working right now (Porting driver to 2.6.0 kernel).

I did not get enough sleep, people would keep turning on and off the camera. Click, Click and Click all night. 8*)

If anyone would like to help/patch or use their x10 cameras here is the link:

http://www.emuit.com/webcam.html

And don't forget the other guy..

There was another guy who set up webcams in his house and put all his lights on X10, and allowed people to control them over the web. Thing is, he's STILL doing it, it must have been going for a couple of years now.

This story reminded me of it, so I went back, and he's live on the thing STILL, so well worth checking out.

It's here at DriveMeInsane.com [drivemeinsane.com] (definitely an apt URL).

Re:Actually..

Actually... I just moved and haven't finished setting everything back up yet. I was hoping to have it all done by xmas, but nothing ever goes according to plan.

Don't worry though, in a month it'll be back up to where it was.

-Restil

Question?

Is anybody else wondering why exactly this guy had a T1 line in his house in the first place last year? Furthermore, is anybody else a little disappointed that he didn't decide to upgrade his T1 line to a home T3 line this year instead of paying for hosting?

The wonderous side effects of annoying advertising

I hate X10.

I know, I know, it's not just that company that does the annoying pop up ads.

Sorry, whenever I hear X10, it just creates so much rage in me I won't even bother reading the fine article.

Let my lesson be learned by all advertising execs. Annoy your customers enough, the backlash and bad feelings may last forever -- or at least the life of your company.

p.s. SCO could stand to learn a similar lesson.

National Lampoon

I think many stations are running "Christmas Vacation" [imdb.com] about now. Don't we all secretly want a crude, but well-meaning cousin Eddie to bitchslap the boss and have Beverly D'Angelo cup our balls? And have squirrel attacks from Christmas trees? The squirrel attack was the best part.

Blinkenlights

This project reminds me of Blinkenlights... This was an awesome project where you could display a small picture/animation/play pong/other on a building using the windows and interior lights as pixels. http://blinkenlights.de/ [blinkenlights.de]

All I want for Christmas...

is my own T-3, my own T-3, my own T-3....

So I can have a Merry Christmas.

*sigh*

You better watch out

public const bool watch_out = 1;
public const bool cry != CRY;
string why; cout why;
santa.target = "town";
apvector[99] list;
for (x = 0; x list.length(); x++)
{
kid.nice = check(list[x]);
kid.nice = check(list[x]);
if kid.nice == "naughty"
naughty(kid);
if kid.nice == "nice"
nice (kid);

if kid.state == (sleep || awake)
know(kid);
if kid.state == (bad || good)
know(kid);
}

for (x = "goodness sake"); x != ""; x = x)
cout "be good!";

public const bool watch_out = 1;
public const bool cry != CRY;
string why; cout why;
santa.target = "town";

hate to be his neighbor

Talk about light pollution... It'd be like the sun is next door to you.

what's the code to execute program on motion?

I have misterhouse running on XP. What I need to play a sound file upon motion detected. I have a ms132 up and running and everytime it picks up motion, the misterhouse GUI prints out a "garage light XA2J is on" notification. I just want to play a sound file everytime that happens....

TIA

Why not use LED based lights?

LED based Christmas lights [foreverbright.com] take about 5% of the power of regular bulbs but are a lot more expensive. Given the amount of power that he's drawing, why not switch over?

GEO-location sillyness

"5. Some GEO-location hacks to assess what country you are coming from. Using the Perl Module Geo::IPfree, it is fairly simple to determine what country you are surfing from based on your IP address - try it now! ;-)"

Ok, so I tried it..

Your Country Name : United States
Your Country Region : North America
Your Hostname : modemcable*CUT*.mc.videotron.ca

Odd that a .ca is in the United States, no? (-:

S

They're watching use even on xmas ;)

Has anyone noticed small oval shape above the house's chimney? Seems one got a good time with image processing software ;)