2004 Screenshot - ☻ Alek's Halloween Webcam ☻ - HULK for President!

Click here to see the intro text/info again Hello 067.123.248.015 from US US Flag

19 other web surfers (YIKES!) have used the halloween webcam in the last minute: 024.009.140.086 024.058.184.214 024.061.148.224 062.168.092.044 063.211.211.145 064.236.240.190 066.027.095.169 067.039.010.227 067.089.235.074 067.123.128.020 069.196.003.156 070.024.208.089 134.121.248.038 150.101.033.194 168.103.225.102 192.204.141.015 199.095.218.166 202.154.112.205 203.039.205.154
Note that everyone can "BATTLE" for control of the webcam and lights!

Message for 067.123.248.015: You have changed the Halloween Decorations & Lights 1 times, played with Pan/Zoom 1 times, and updated the webcam 0 times

Sending commands to lights via X10 and webcam via Ethernet:

You voted for HULK! Requesting that zone 2 be turned ON ... doing X10 status check ... FAILED ... Re-requesting that zone 2 be turned ON ... doing X10 status check ... Zone 2 is NOW ON !!!
You voted for BUSH! Requesting that zone 3 be turned ON ... doing X10 status check ... Zone 3 is NOW ON !!!
You voted for KERRY! Requesting that zone 4 be turned ON ... doing X10 status check ... Zone 4 is NOW ON !!! (warning: voltage sag to 102.19 volts detected)
Sending request to change webcam Bearing from 199.7 to 190.0 ... confirmed new camera Bearing of 190.0 degrees (true)
Sending request to change webcam Elevation from 3.3 to 10.0 ... confirmed new camera Elevation of 10.0 degrees
Webcam field of view is ~179-200° (Bearing) and 1-18° (Elevation) ... Waiting for webcam update ... retrieving image ... got it!

Querying various sensors (read how these work) :

Temperature is 58.0°F ... Looks like no rain in the last hour ... Humidity is 41% ... Pressure is 30.02 inches Hg ... Wind Direction is 306 and averaging 18.6 mph with gusts to 42.2 mph ... Garage Sensor indicates garage is closed ... Ground-Motion-Cam did not detect anyone walking around ... Road-Cam did not detect any cars ... Sky-Motion-Cams do not detect any airplanes ... Sky Sensor detected SOME stars - probably moderately cloudy ... Total house amperage load currently 23.7 ... Steady-State voltage is 118.35 Volts

Change Zoom: 1.0 2.0 3.0 4.0 5.0
Change Lights: 2 3 4
<=== Click anywhere on the image to re-center webcam with changes

The "ONLY Update Webcam Picture" does not pan/zoom the camera, nor does it change the lights - it only asks the webcam to "reshoot" the picture. While the lights themselves won't change (unless someone else is playing with them at the same time - a REAL possibility by the way!), what you may see is an occasional car drive by, people stopping to gawk at the lights, our garage opening, etc. Use the controls below to pan/zoom the camera and turn the lights ON & OFF.

Email HULK if you see anything 'interesting' ...
and I'll add to the webcam cool pictures page! ;-)

Webcam Usage Stats - Change_Lights: 6,193 Change_Webcam_Pan_Zoom: 10,030 Update_Webcam: 4,059 Viewed_Outa_Hours: 94,594 Webcam_Overloaded: 10,069 TOTAL HITS: 124,945

Votes so far - HULK: 2,273 BUSH: 2,192 KERRY: 2,046

Control the Webcam - Pan & Zoom it!

Setting	CHANGE	Default	Range	One-Click Change
Bearing		190.0	175.0 - 205.0
Elevation		10.0	0.0 - 20.0
Zoom		1.0	1.0 - 5.0

You can PAN the webcam - i.e. move it to the left/right and/or up/down. The bearing shows the (true) compass heading, so lower numbers slew to the left and higher slews to the right. The elevation is the verticle angle of the webcam - higher numbers are up. The webcam also has a ZOOM feature - i.e. take a closer look at something. The easiest approach is simply clicking on the image where you want the webcam to move to. Optionally use the arrows to slew the webcam 5° in the selected direction or use the +/- buttons to zoom-in/out by 1X. Finally, here are some special buttons that will cause the webcam to zoom in tight on the topic of interest:

Control the Lights - turn 'em ON & OFF!

X10 ZONE	Current	Change to
VOTE!	Status	ON OFF
1	ON	- -
2 (HULK)	ON
3 (BUSH)	ON
4 (KERRY)	ON

The current state of the X10 zones is shown to the left. Also look at the picture above and the light count/amperage table below. Then simply toggle a zone (or zones - you can do more than one) to whatever you want, and then hit "Change Light Setting" which will send X10 commands to change the lights, and then refresh the picture ... and hopefully not annoy my neighbors too much!

X10-Zone       Amps   Lights    Description - red means it is ON
   1            0.5        4    Driveway lights
   1            0.5      100    Two RIP'S
   2            0.5      100    Clock Window
   2            2.3      301    Spotlight, Bones, Fish, mailbox RIP, Lower Ghost
   2            2.1      403    Aliens, Franks, HULK, Spider
   2            0.7      107    Pumpkin, Bubble Lights
   3            2.6      900    Lawn Ghost, BUSH
   3            0.9      300    Upstairs window BOO, Bat, Pumpkin
   4            1.7      500    Lawn BOO, KERRY, Flamingos, Pooh
   4            3.5    1,000    Upper Deck Icicles, Ghost
TOTALS         15.3    3,715

Halloween Decorations & Lights main page (also includes historical/future stuff)
Main FAQ, Halloween Webcam FAQ and X10 Sensors FAQ
Some more "interesting" (?!? ;-) pictures from the archive
Other folks who have done nutty stuff like this
Web Stats (updated hourly) on how many people are hitting the site and using the halloween_webcam
More about the Crazy Guy behind all this and also see his Christmas Lights! ;-)
What is new for Halloween 2004 and what is planned for Halloween 2005 - send me your ideas/suggestions

Questions/comments/whatever about the Halloween Webcam version 3.0?
Send HULK an Email (he SMASHES spammers) and he might answer/publish it.

© 2002-2004 www.komar.org

Welcome to halloween_webcam at 1930 - webcam operational for another 2 hours, 30 minutes

Use the halloween webcam to view live images of a buncha halloween lights and also CONTROL them - i.e. YOU can turn them ON and OFF via your web browser! The halloween webcam has PAN and ZOOM capability that you can also control. The webcam and webcontrol demo are ONLY operational between 1900 and 2200 Mountain Time. Each web surfer can only update the webcam 10 times, change the lights 3 times, and play with the pan/zoom 5 times, withen 5 minutes - this limits the load on my server/Internet connection and I'm concerned about the halloween webcam being (ab)used too much and the blinking lights bothering the neighbors! ;-)

AND you can "vote" for you favorite presidential candidate too!
Votes so far - HULK: 2,273 BUSH: 2,192 KERRY: 2,046
Cast your vote when the webcam is operational by toggling the lights

2004_10_18_18:20 - Good news: I plan to turn the webcam on early tonight - check back in an hour or so. Bad News: It will go off at 2200 this evening (have an early work appt Tuesday). Good News: I'm talking to my neighbors about leaving it on all night long Friday and Saturday, since some folks overseas have requested this. BTW, it's pretty breezy tonight, which causes the webcam to "jitter" a bit, especially if you are zoomed in quite a bit ... but when 15 people are BATTLING for control, it kinda does that anyway - take it easy on the max zoom surfers, because you could end up pointing at black sky.

2004_09_01 UPDATE: Try the halloween webcam in a few weeks - you won't be disappointed!
While you are waiting, consider using your PC's idle CPU cycles to help Stanford's medical research

2004_09_23 UPDATE: I have activated the environmental sensors (check out the local Colorado weather) and the near-real-time Web Stats. I'm starting to put the halloween decorations up and working some issues with the webcam, but check back in a week or so and I might have it all working by then.

2004_10_01 UPDATE: The Halloween Webcam is operational - I've warned my neighbors! ;-)

2004_10_07 UPDATE: Per request from MikeR in Australia, a "spanky-look-alike" will be placed on the driveway around 2030 tonight - so I'll "lock out" the webcam so he can use it exclusively for a few minutes - here are some cool pictures from it and I'll be updating these periodically

2004_10_09 UPDATE: I finally got around to updating the various various FAQ's and hope to get a firmware update to the webcam that should improve its reliability - seems to fail for unknown/random reasons about 5% of the time. We're off to a neighborhood wine tasting tonight, so I'll have to be sure to warn the babysitter about possible light action - be nice to her! ;-)

2004_10_10 UPDATE: I've loaded the new webcam firmware - curious if it makes any diference. And since it's that time of the year, I added Bush/Kerry/Hulk lights and enabled "voting" for your favorite candidate ... www.komar.org endorses the Hulk with his running partner Dr. Bruce Banner ... brains and brawn on the same ticket! ;-)

2004_10_14 UPDATE: It was pointed out to me that Garage Sensor wasn't showing it as being open when it clearly was in the webcam picture - turns out the upper magnetic pickup had come loose and was dangling - good as new now! I'll go through the image archives and find some of the obligatory shots of me driving into the garage and add 'em to the cool pictures archive.

2004_10_15 UPDATE: Holy Halloween Lights Batman - the webcam got FARK'ed so thousands of surfers came by today and the neighbors called wondering what the HECK was going on. Replaced one X10 switch module that felt warm, but otherwise the various hardware, circuit breakers, and web server (go Apache/Perl!) are hanging in there and we're ready for another wave of web surfers tonight ... I think. BTW, looks like JD over at User Friendly (great comic strip!) has mentioned the site.

2004_10_18 UPDATE: Holy Halloween Lights AGAIN Batman - the webcam got Slashdott'ed ... over 50,000 surfers came by today - when I called my neighbors to let 'em know they just said "let me guess, another light show night" ... although this one was short-lived as I only had the webcam operational for 79 minutes due to everything get overloaded - here was the play-by-play and try again Monday night when things should hopefully not be so insane!