Gizmo

Santa Claus writes "Joe 'Zonker' Brockmeier's recent article at Linux.Com tells the hilarious story of Alek's Controllable Christmas Lights. When he out'ed himself to the Wall Street Journal, saying that it was a simulation/hoax in 2004, the mass media howled at being fooled while Slashdot simply said Humbug. Alek claims that he went legit in 2005, as confirmed by the Rocky Mountain News. Brockmeier did an on-site visit to actually see and report in detail how the system really works ... for real! For 2006, there are three D-Link DCS-6620G webcams providing live coverage of 15,000 Christmas Lights, plus giant inflatable Elmo, Santa, and Homer Simpson. X10 power technology allows web surfers to turn stuff on & off with a click of a mouse. You can also type in text for everyone to see on a laptop in Santa's Workshop Cam. This year over $15,000 has been raised for the University of Maryland Center for Celiac Research, as a result of the lights. Brockmeier and the Christmas FAQ says it is load-balanced across four dedicated 100 Mbps Apache/Linux servers running mod_perl." Linux.com and Slashdot are both owned by OSTG.

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