Some of you will remember that a few years ago, we featured the massive outside Christmas lights display created by Alek Komarnitsky that you could control over the Internet. It included Christmas lighted outdoor decorations, Christmas inflatables, Christmas lawn decorations, and all other fashion of outside Christmas lawn ornaments and Christmas lawn decor – and even a few not-so Christmas outdoor decorations, such as the Incredible Hulk. Then, it turned out that all of this Christmas yard art was a fake – that is, the outdoor Christmas decorations did exist, but it was a hoax that you could turn this outside Christmas lights display on and off with your computer from across the Internet. This time, however, it’s real!
It all started when we discovered Alek Komarnitsky’s yard, which he had decorated with all of those outdoor Christmas lights and decorations. “Control this guy’s Christmas lights with your web browser!” we announced.
We even encouraged our readers to donate money to help support the cost of Komarnitsky’s bandwidth.
Then we discovered that we’d been taken in, and that the whole thing was a fraud and a hoax.
And we were not happy.
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Komarnitsky copped to the hoax, and offered an apology, saying that “I apologize to those people who may be angry with me, but hopefully most will see the humor in the whole situation … and realize that my attempt to bring joy and a smile to people’s faces was successful.”
But we still were less than thrilled.
That was back in 2004, and he had since informed us that his holiday light display was the real deal now – that now you actually could control his Christmas lights and inflatables on the Internet, while sitting in the comfort of your own computer chair.
Ah, but we had no way to really prove that, and so were unwilling to lead our readers down the merry path again.
But then something happened. I moved to Colorado. In fact, I moved to within a few miles of where Alek Komarntisky lives, and as it happens, in one of our communications, he had told me where exactly that Christmas light display was located.
So, a few days ago, I drove on over there, unannounced, to check it out for myself.
When I arrived, I pulled up in front of the yard, and, using my trusty G1 phone, pulled up the web page from which Alek claimed you could control his Christmas display.
Then I started clicking on the “turn off” and “turn on” buttons on the web page, and guess what! What happened next was magic!
This is what the yard looked like when I first pulled up:
This is what the yard looked like as I started hitting all the “turn off” buttons:
And here it is after I turned everything back on:
So, hats off to you, Alek Komarnitsky – you’ve really done it this time.
You can view Alek’s light display, which is dedicated to finding a cure for Celiac Disease – and turn it on and off – here.
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