Xmas Lights + X10 + Webcam = Fun

Clark Griswold writes "My brother has outdone himself this year, installing 22,000 Christmas Lights on the outside of his house alone. The real beauty is the X10-Webcam Combo that allows you to turn the lights ON and OFF and see the results of your handiwork. It only works between 6pm and 10pm MST, but it's pretty fun to turn the zones on and off (though I'm not so sure the neighbors like it!)."

Whoa.

[joeszilagyi]

OK, this is really cool, and makes me want to wire my house this way. My wife would kill me, though (although that would make for entertaining webcamming, that's for sure--live spousal beheadings).

live spousal beatings

[SHEENmaster]

will get more hits.

Re:live spousal beatings

[Directrix1]

I don't think this guy really likes his brother otherwise he wouldn't have posted this link to get slashdotted.

Re:Whoa.

[arivanov]

Do you have a "backup nuclear reactor" to feed it though ;-)

But they look so normal...

[BigBlockMopar]

OK, this is really cool, and makes me want to wire my house this way.

And they looked like such a *normal* family.

How are you supposed to know that your neighbors won't do something equally disruptive, if you can't spot the wackos?

Even just 1kW of lights must make it daylight in the living room of the house across the street. Never mind arbitrary blinking, multiple colors, TV crews and tourists driving by...

Useful

[ReadParse]

Oh, this will be useful and a productive use of time once the site gets slammed. Glad I hit it early.

Re:Useful

[Penguuu]

Yeah... and another webcam could be put up in his house when he gets the electric bill :)

Slashdotted Christmas Lights

[The Darkness]

From the control page:

Message for <withheld>: The lights are being switched ON and OFF off too fast - try again in a few minutes ...

Abused...

[MBCook]

Each web surfer can only update the webcam 5 times and change the lights 3 times withen 5 minutes - this limits the load on my server/Internet connection and I'm concerned about this being (ab)used too much...

So naturally, we posted it on Slashdot. Maybe a limit of switching the lights 3 times withing 5 minutes TOTAL FROM ALL USERS would have been better. Very cool though.

PS: Have we ever slashdotted a X10 system before?

Re:Abused...

[rjamestaylor]

• PS: Have we ever slashdotted a X10 system before?

Not sure, I'd like to slash-burn X10.com . . .

Re:Abused...

[caino59]

nah, the lights won't be going on and off at all...the site has been crushed.

or maybe the electric cut him off ;oP

Re:Abused...

[Negadecimal]

Clark Griswold writes "My brother has outdone himself this year...

I suppose we all have the right to /. our own families...

Re:Abused...

[dirkdidit]

All because he didn't buy his brother a christmas gift, that cheap bastard. Though, I do believe a Slashdotting is a bit harsh.

More to Abuse

[radon28]

PS: Have we ever slashdotted a X10 system before?

Well, we can make that two. This guy [drivemeinsane.com] has a similar setup in his house, but it's all indoor action. Lights on, Lights off etc. It shouldn't be too hard to kill this guy's server either.

OOPS

[radon28]

Oh, i see that the site that was trying to load while i was looking at the threads was on the same domain. heh heh umm errr...

oh great

[jon787]

slashdotted already....and this is only the 10th or so reply!

Re:oh great

[greenreaper]

The thing is, slashdotting isn't a gradual thing - it happens instantly. All at once you're hit by X users. It's not a pretty sight.

Ah slashdot...

[CableModemSniper]

The only way to create a fire-hazard from half-way around the world...Light ON, light OFF, Light ON, Light OFF, Light ON, Light OFF, Light BOOM! --Sparks everywhere...

Oh my....

[PinkX]

Only 8 comments and the poor guy's webcam site is already slashdotted.

It's Fooked

[Sean Connery Guy]

This guy must hate his brother if he posted this here. Probably won't be able to see it till after Xmas now.

Slashdot is the Grinch

[TheOnlyCoolTim]

We just slashdotted CHRISTMAS. What next, do the editors engineer a DDoS on GOD HIMSELF?

Tim

Re:Slashdot is the Grinch

[CheechBG]

That, sir, was the funniest thing I have heard in a good long time :)

a merry christmas to you sir, and everyone else while I'm at it. :p

Jeff

Re:Slashdot is the Grinch

[Kizzle]

Hey everyone go here [god.com]

Well...

[freeweed]

.. that all depends on how high up this post [heaven.com] gets modded :)

Re:Slashdot is the Grinch

[Tablizer]

"Finally I thought of a way to get even with my bro for putting that toad in my pillow!"

Re:..What would Jesus Christ do?

[TheOnlyCoolTim]

"temporarily dismisal from one's work or responsibilities to engage in vast feasting, sexual orgies, and general immorality."

Sounds a lot more fun than "seeking communion with fellow people to honor Jesus through prayer, praise, and joyful feasting"

Tim

New Math

[Chris_Stankowitz]

Xmas Lights + X10 + Webcam + /. = Lights Out

Re:.What would Jesus Christ do?

[Mr.Sharpy]

Saturnalia is celebrated over a week or two in Rome by temporarily dismisal from one's work or responsibilities to engage in vast feasting, sexual orgies, and general immorality.

You say that like it's a bad thing...

The Gaunlet....

[the.jedi]

has been thrown down.
Time to go wire up an 50 or so 7 segment display's
so I can scroll the latest slashdot headlines across my front front yard.
I'm dreaammming of geek christmas.

Gotta love the holidays.

Re:The Gaunlet....

[your cre8or]

i am chaos

Re:The Gaunlet....

[j2demelo]

no no ... stupid

Re:The Gaunlet....

[ShadowDrake]

7-segment displays are unsuitable. Can't do letters well.

5x7 matrix displays, or 17(?)-segment displays would do the job.

His front porch has been slashdotted.

[Qender]

Seriously, all these people trying to turn his lights on and off... Must look like a strobe-light.

Re:His front porch has been slashdotted.

[Brainboy]

A strobe light? That could be dangerous, as we all know strobe lights attract ravers. And who wants ravers at their front porch ??

Google cache

[tuck182]

Check the cache [216.239.53.100] of the homepage, if you want to at least see the house. The image seems to be on another server.

Re:Google cache

[tuck182]

Sorry, I should read a bit more closely. Here's the correct link. [google.com]

And his neighbors say....

[yack0]

THANK GOD FOR SLASHDOT! Now the lights are ALL out!

Not only did the server that runs them crash, it took all 22,000 lights with it.

WOOHOO!!!!

Re:And his neighbors say....

[yack0]

From his website this morning:

"NOTE: There was a HUGE increase in the amount of "light flickering" starting Xmas Eve shortly before 7:00PM (maybe Santa's GPS failed, so he was using my house as a navigation aid?!? ;-) and some misc. technical difficulties associated with this load spike, so pls try again if something doesn't quite work right. "

Heh... heh.... bwahahaa....... mwahahahaha...... rotfl.....

That's classic....

Re:...What would Jesus Christ do?

[joebagodonuts]

I think I'll convert to Roman!

X-10

[Qender]

Is this some candid version of x-10 advertising on slashdot?

You Bastards!

[RickHunter]

You Slashdotted the good, old-fashioned Griswold family Christmas!

Re:You Bastards!

[kyoko21]

Slashdotting the Griswold? Hehe. That's really funny. :-)

Brother? Uh huh

[cybervixen]

I think the "brother" is really the neighbors trying to get a little revenge. Post the URL on /, wait for the server crash and go to sleep with no lights flickering. With people suing each other in my area for annoying light displays,I wouldn't be surprised.

Now that it's down

[waytoomuchcoffee]

Do you think the lights are ON or OFF? We will never know what the default was...

Lol. This guy's brother sold him out for the 5 karma points he got for getting his story posted...

This guy has done better

[Kizzle]

At Drivemeinsane.com [drivemeinsane.com] you can control christmas lights in his living room, turn on the sprinkler, office lights, and send mesages that are said with a text to speach program.

Re:This guy has done better

[Penguuu]

Wow, this site should have been slashdotted... but I bet you would really go insane, if your heard your favorite slashdot-joke (In Soviet Russia, goatse etc.) billionth time from your speakers :)

Re:This guy has done better

[MattCohn.com]

Talking to this guy in the chatroom, he says that the slashdotting isn't too bad, and it usualy dies off in about a couple hours. I guess he's just used to everything blinking on and off and on and off and on and off and on and off and on and off and on and off and on and off.

Re:This guy has done better

[The-Perl-CD-Bookshel]

you mean your grundle? Or are you talking about yoru gooch?

Re:This guy has done better

[lvdrproject]

I believe the quote was "'tain't your HMMM, and 'tain't your HA, so it's taint".

In related news....

[Dolphinzilla]

A local house burned to the gound when its X10 camera system and 22,000 Christmas lights were Slashdotted.....

There's always uglychristmaslights.com

[Anonymous Coward]

Since I'm sure this would qualify for uglychristmaslights.com

On the first day of Christmas...

[FrostedWheat]

My computer said to me .... B.S.O.D. !!

Re:On the first day of Christmas...

[Dodger_]

On the second day of Christmas my computer said to me...please format me

I feel sorry for...

[Phoenix823]

I would really feel terrible if this guy has any epileptic neighbors!

X10 and their marketing..

[TheHawke]

I'd be more than glad to purchase their product, IF they did not have their marketing campaign that pops up on almost every site I go to.

Re:X10 and their marketing..

[CableModemSniper]

Allright, just to be clear, you're not talking about the same X10. X10 as reffered to in the article is home automation hardware (computer-controlled light-switches for example). The annoying pop-ups are unrelated.

Re:X10 and their marketing..

[TheHawke]

Not really... X10 IS X10 home automation, wireless cameras, PLUS very nosy ads..
Now if you can disprove this by URLs, go right ahead..

Re:X10 and their marketing..

[CableModemSniper]

http://www.smarthome.com/about_x10.html [smarthome.com]

http://www.x10.org/ [x10.org]

To quote from the x10.org website: "X-10 is a powerline carrier protocol that allows compatible devices throughout the home to communicate with each other via the existing 110V wiring in the house."

Incidently, notice that the x10.org's product search link points to smarthome.com as opposed to x10.com, and none of the products on the smarthome site link to x10.com yes, x10.com does sell home automation gear, but in the context of the article they were talking about the protocol, not x10.com gear specefically.

Re:X10 and their marketing..

[TheHawke]

I was thinking of http://www.x10.com , but your explanation will do nicley.. Thanks!

I would like to recommend to everyone that uses SmartHome gear to make it clear that you are using the product, instead of the generic name in which will cause plenty of folks needless grief.

/. light haiku

[flogger]

Proud of what I did,
Brother was envious and
slashdoted my lights

Where's that Janie Porche Chick?

[Gordo Toor]

... from the Apple "Switch" commercial. She saved Christmas from Windows [apple.com] last year, now she's gotta save it from Slashdot!

Re:Where's that Janie Porche Chick?

[zm]

Hey, S. Claus switched [apple.com] too!
Guess that did not save Christmas from getting slashdotted....
zm

Wake Me When The Shuttle Calls

[limekiller4]

Stories about wiring up your house for Christmas -- I don't care how you go about doing it -- should not ever hit Slashdot unless it can be seen from space.

Re:Wake Me When The Shuttle Calls

[Hanji]

Well, after being posted to /. the resultant fire probably will be.

Re:Wake Me When The Shuttle Calls

[upt1me]

I believe satelites in space can see those light fick on and off.

Re:Wake Me When The Shuttle Calls

[ottffssent]

Are you kidding? You can see your coffee mug from space! And that's not even lit up; it has to rely on reflected light. This guy's radiating a few dozen amps of power and you're worried if it's visible from space? I'll bet we start hearing complaints from Alpha Centauri in about 8 years.

Why?

[happypizzaguy]

What did your brother do to deserve this?

What a way to wish your brother a happy holiday...

[happypizzaguy]

You just made his house burst into flame.

Right Technology, Wrong Vision

[vudufixit]

I thought X10 gear was only for spying on pretty young women in tight clothes.
I guess those popups were misleading me...

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Re:

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Any Chance...

[Ryan Stortz]

Any chance this brother was really an annoyed neighbor who knew the true power of the nerd? :)

this post + slashdot =

[theefer]

stroboscope

poor neighboors, if they didn't like it before, I wonder how they like the crazy flashes of thousands of slashdotters playing around with the lights ...

In Soveit Russia...

[Znonymous Coward]

This wouldn't happen. Russians can't afford the bandwidth.

A lousy T-Shirt

[TheBillGates]

My brother got slashdotted for Christmas and all I got was this lousy T-shirt.

All i want for christmas....

[SomeOtherGuy]

great, now his bandwidth bill will equal his electric bill.

Perl cgi not up to the task

[codepunk]

As always perl is just not up to the task...

Re:Perl cgi not up to the task

[j2demelo]

useless comment...

Re:Perl cgi not up to the task

[Gordonjcp]

So what would you use, then?

I had a friend who had an X-10 controlled...

[512k]

light in his house..he let us (people he knew on a message board) connect to it, and turn it on and off...I wanted to send him threatning messages in morse code..but it didn't switch on and off anywhere near fast enough to do that.

The greatest gift of all...

[E-Rock-23]

...is Slashdotting your brother on Christmas Eve. Merry Christmas to all, and to all, a good mug of your favorite brewski!

Yeah, that's great and all...

[Wakko Warner]

...but I make it a point to never buy from a company that advertises with half-naked popup ads.

- A.P.

Your loss

[anthony_dipierro]

I'll buy from whatever company advertises the least expensively.

karma whoring for the lazy

[secs]

http://www.google.ca/search?q=cache:7RoAhQeSahQC:w ww.komar.org/xmas/

http://www.google.ca/search?q=cache:sVe6bz6mGQoC :w ww.komar.org/xmas/2001/

http://www.google.ca/search?q=cache:MnEhsQDlHFIC :w ww.komar.org/xmas/2002/power.html

just wait a few mins for the pix to load ;)

Re:karma whoring for the lazy

[The-Perl-CD-Bookshel]

Those links don't work, you were to lazy to put the HTML in there AND google caching a web cam destroys the intrigue of a web cam! No karma fo' you!

Poor Neighbors....

[shirameroix]

Talk about a bad case of trying to keep up with the Jones family. It must feel like a kick in the face to the neighbors who have the typical string around the roof display. If nothing else, it might get sickening after a while.

electric bill did it?

[Tablizer]

I think I just saw that house at Foreclosure.com

Merry Christmas, Bro!

[watchful.babbler]

I got you a Slashdotting ...

Worse than D.O.S.

[Tablizer]

that allows you to turn the lights ON and OFF and see the results of your handiwork

Damn! Mr. Goatse just sent his Ascii art. SouthWest passengers are in for a real "treat".

For shame!@#

[BobStikigreen]

Never buy and X10 cam, that will only encourge them to make more annoying pop-ups!

On the first day of xmas, my brother gave to me...

[kazad]

a slashdotted server. That bastard!

This has already been done

[wackybrit]

Control all the lights in this guy's house at http://www.drivemeinsane.com/ [drivemeinsane.com]

If you like Christmas lights...

[telstar]

If you like Christmas lights, and live in the NJ area you should definitely take a trip to this guy's [bergenrecord.com] house. He's been doing it for about 30 years and every year it gets bigger and better. Cars line up and wait up to an hour to drive around the streets near his house. It's not X10, but it's damn cool for a Christmas Lights display.

Merry Christmas to those that celebrate it.

You are silly.

[TheOnlyCoolTim]

The lights are powered by the wind turbines! Oh man, your self-righteous enviromentalist rant just got SHUT DOWN!

Tim

Re:Not to be a grinch...

[palp]

According to the site, they're wind powered.

Re:Not to be a grinch...

[Brainboy]

Why not instead build some cool snow sculptures in the front yard next year?

Snow sculptures! You can't connect those to computers. Or can you . . .

Re:Not to be a grinch...

[DAldredge]

No. I think a large portion of the tech community is working on finding work/better paying work.

Re:X10 Must Die!

[Gordonjcp]

X10 is the name of the protocol. It's just unfortunate that the domain was bought by a fairly evil marketing company.

Re:jesus crust on a popsicle stick

[WebMasterJoe]

what the hell is the point of posting such a thing if it can't withstand the slashdot load? honestly? what purpose does it serve? none! i think there should be some hardware requirements in order for a site to be linked to from slashdot.

those geniuses at slashdot should seriously think of something soon before i go postal.

I fail to see how slashdot owes you a selection of fast-loading, interesting links. What have you done to deserve this? Looked at ads? Too many people at slashdot complain that the site isn't up to their expectations. Please leave. If you aren't getting your money's worth, I'm sure the slashdot crew will refund you all the money you've given them.

You get what you get, and if you don't like it, you go someplace else. If a person's interactive christmas-light-display can't handle thousands of people accessing it at the same time, then most of those people won't get to see it. If slashdot doesn't post the article, then none (or very very very few) of these people will get to see it.

So to answer the question you thought was rhetorical, the point of posting the story was to show as many people as possible what this project was, then to open the topic up for discussion. Enough with this slashdot-owes-me-fast-links crap. Grow up.

Re:jesus crust on a popsicle stick

[WebMasterJoe]

Yes, I am quite obviously retarded. Thank you for the well thought-out response. I especially appreciate your disregard for capitalization; it does wonders to the strength of your (already impressive) rebuttal.