Alek's Christmas Lights: Humbug 327
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.'"
No fooling (Score:3, Informative)
I discovered the same thing at 12 noon Denver time when a night time shot of the house was listed as "live".
Alek Comments (Score:5, Informative)
Straight from the gift horse's mouth: (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Google ads on his page weren't a hoax tho (Score:3, Informative)
But that payment rate also depends on the kind of ad clicked on. Sometimes I get 3 cents a click, sometimes I get 75 cents a click. Over the past month and a half I've averaged just under 17.5 cents per click.
Would you like a tissue? (Score:5, Informative)
Re:LOL (Score:4, Informative)
new perspective on my attempted visit (Score:5, Informative)
His response [slashdot.org] to my post was interesting.. it seemed legit and appropriately paranoid about strangers knocking on his door (which I would never do!!).
His explanation... (Score:5, Informative)
It seems like for all the trouble he went through to set up this hoax, it would actually have been easier to hook up the X10 to his computer and plop a real webcam outside.
What it took for the hoax:
I guess at least now we know who is really responsible for the moon landing video.
Re:I bet the AdWords wasn't a hoax (Score:5, Informative)
Several media folks are slamming me for running Google Adsense and saying I cleaned up on it. That is simply not true ... but unfortunately, I can not comment on this due to Google's Program Policies ... but let me just say that the Google Adsense Revenue for the month will just about pay for my wife's 40th birthday party and I would have made a LOT more if I had taken that Radio Station's $10,000 offer. I invite the media to contact Google for the actual numbers and they have my permission to release 'em.
Re:Well... (Score:2, Informative)
However yeah I'd agree with you and at least attempt to make sure any house I bought was a non HOA area. Granted I really don't care what color the house is painted, and noise issues are often handled by the police, etc...
Computer controlled Xmas lights (Score:2, Informative)
Although not controlled via the internet it would be relatively easy, just some software mod's and a web server required.
The computer is a Pentium 90 stuck out in the garage, running a hand coded C' program to sequence the lights. The program checks the state of the real time clock in the computer and the light show is automatic between 18:00 - 22:00 nightly.
The C' program runs under DOS (although this year it's now under Win98, because I was going to use VNC for control over the house LAN.)
The program controls the printer port which is connected to 4 solid state relays, I currently have 4 channels with 4 strings of 5W bulbs on each channel (4*4*5*25=2KW) all these strings are strung around a 20' spruce tree. The lights fade in/out and the sequences have variable delay times and some random sequences so each time it runs the output is slightly different each time.
Sorry no video or stills of this yet.
Re:It's not like it's that hard or anything... (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Computer controlled Xmas lights (Score:3, Informative)
Re:like that BK chicken (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Marketing/Management Material (Score:3, Informative)
Most webcams don't do Christmas light very well. I know, I've tried. Most webcams don't do dark very well (high video noise). His shots were low noise and long exposure (evidance by streak of car headlight and tail lights). From the beginning the webcam photos were questionable to me. They were just too good for the conditions. They were not NTSC over a wireless link. An X10 cam does not do long exposures in low light.
Generaly only a Digital cam can produce the photos as displayed by the site, not a webcam.