The Naked Green

2004.12.17 Friday

Holight Day Fun

Filed under: General — Mr. Green @ 9.35 am

Venomous Kate has struck again with this bit of news on lights:

No time to put up your own holiday lights this year? Never fear. You can borrow Alek Komarnitsky’s between the hours of 6 p.m. and 10 p.m. (Mountain time). All you need is a computer and a browser, and then you’re in control of his lights. –more–

The Komarnitskys, called “the Griswolds of our neighborhood” are a family that loves lights. At least Alek does, and he has hooked up his 17,000 lights to a Linux box for the world to control (literally). ” This month alone, more than 1.3 million Internet browsers…have visited the site.” Yesterday, the site received 369,023 requests! - Gleaned from the Yahoo News story: Interactive Christmas Lights an online hit and Alek’s Christmas Lights Webcam page.

This is great and I will have to try it out. It reminds me of sitting in front of someone’s house with my parents and brothers a couple years ago. I’m not the type that likes Christmas lights much, but I can enjoy them when they are tastefully done. Unfortunately, most don’t have a sense of taste, or balance apparently. This house was different: There were tons of lights, but not all on at once. They all faded on and off, making a wonderful show. We ooed and ahhed as the lights around the roof faded from one color to another and gasped as a deer appeared on the front lawn. We must have spent an hour just watching and I don’t remember a repeat in the pattern. I think it must have been controlled by a computer, but not thousands of internet users (it would have been too chaotic). The Komarnitskys’ house is off the hook and I look forward to adding to the chaos!

The Komarnitskys’ site also has links to other wacky stuff with lights like the Texan DriveMeInsane.com where you can mess with a table full of lights, turning them on or off. There was also La Bastille, that turned Brown’s fourteen-story Sciences Library in a gigantic Tetris game or Project Blikenlights in Germany.

3 Comments »

  1. Kate,

    Nice writeup - plus you actually looked at the site and found some of the other cool stuff - you should be a reporter - good job! ;-)

    Happy Holidays,
    alek (yes, THAT alek! ;-)

    Comment by Mr. Christmas Lights — 2004.12.19 Sunday @ 11.27 am

  2. Thanks for the encouragement and complement, Alek!
    For the record, I am not Kate, but it was THE Venemous Kate who wrote the post where I first found out about your site. I’m Mr. Green.

    Comment by Mr. Green — 2004.12.20 Monday @ 8.13 am

  3. Komarnitsky Scam
    Thanks to Jamie, my wife, for pointing me to the story of Alek Komarnitsky’s scam on CNN.com:

    DENVER, Colorado (AP) — A man who boasted to reporters around the world that his Web site allowed strangers to turn his outdoor Christmas lights off and …

    Trackback by The Naked Green — 2004.12.28 Tuesday @ 12.22 pm

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