Palo Alto – On a cold December evening, engineer Mark Robbins, 54, opened a laptop in his son’s room to demonstrate the software he uses to control the 10,000 lights that decorate his home and yard. They highlight an assortment of candy canes, gift-wrapped boxes and animals, including a flamingo, an owl, a reindeer, and a small dog that looks like his elderly sweetheart, Oscar. A button at the front of the patio invites passersby to sync the lights to one of 25 Christmas, pop, and rock melodies.
Robbins pulled the Earth, Wind, and Fire song “September,” which is connected to 16 “channels” attached to strings of lights around his house and yard. For every minute of music, it takes an hour to program exactly how he wants the lights to flash.
“All these little symbols here tell us the light is going to go on at that time in the song,” Robbins said. “I like to build things, and then if you can build something that other people can appreciate and enjoy and get some happiness from, even better.”
Inspired by a Christmas lights show he had seen at Walt Disney World years earlier, Robbins thought he would sprinkle a little fairy dust on his Silicon Valley neighborhood. And the reward was more than just holiday cheer – it helped him land a high-profile job at a top-tier broadcasting company.
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“I wasn’t trying to get a job when I did it,” Robbins said. “But, you know, serendipitous things happen all the time. In a way, it’s like making your own luck, right?”
Homeowners across the country have spent big money on vacation packages during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Kids press the play button on the red table to start the musical light show as Mark Robbins, left, checks out the computer program in Palo Alto.
(Paul Kuroda / For The Times)
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This year, consumers are expected to spend $67.10 per person on holiday decorations, up about $4 from 2021, according to the National Retail Trade Group. A YouTube search turns up a handful of homes with elaborate syncs, including one in Riverside The music is transmitted over a radio frequency that viewers can tune into their cars.
Robbins spent about $3,000 on his light show, which more than impressed his neighbors.
In 2020, Robbins — who was head of AI strategy at Intel — wrote in a Christmas letter to his family that he was automating his Palo Alto home with a smart irrigation system, thermostat, and grill. At the same time, his light show became more popular—that year it won the city’s People’s Choice award, beating out former Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer, Robbins said.
The light show and message caught the attention of Roku CEO Anthony Wood, who lives a block away.
the San Jose based company It is famous for its hardware and drivers that connect TVs to many streaming services. Wood emailed Robins, complimenting him on his light pitch and mentioning that Roku had an ambitious smart home project in the works and that the company was looking for someone to run it. Was Robins interested?
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Musically synced holiday lights at Mark Robbins’ home in Palo Alto, California.
(Paul Kuroda / For The Times)
“He put those two things together and kind of saw my passion for this space,” Robbins said.
Robins, who was already a Roku user, was game to meet up for coffee. The job will lead the company’s new smart home division, launching a whole new category of items Roku hasn’t sold before, including smart light bulbs, security cameras, and doorbells.
A risky bet for some, but not for Robbins, who previously co-founded and led a startup that was later sold.
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Musically synced holiday lights at Mark Robbins’ home in Palo Alto.
(Paul Kuroda / For The Times)
“Building companies, building businesses, creating something out of nothing or very little is really exciting for me,” Robbins said.
After a rigorous job interview process, he joined Roku in May 2021, overseeing a team of hundreds of employees around the world. Roku launched its new smart home products in October at Walmart.
“It was clear that the dedication, passion and creativity that Mark demonstrated in his light show, along with his impressive career, would be a great addition to the Roku leadership team,” said Mustafa Özgen, the company’s Chief Device Officer, who is the president of Robins. .
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Robbins says his inspiration for the light show came after a memorable visit to Walt Disney World in 2013, when he, his wife Kim, and their three children watched the Osborne Family Spectacle of Dancing Lights.
The show, which syncopated music and millions of lights across several buildings, came to Disney World after the company struck a deal with Jennings Osborne, whose light show in Little Rock, Ark., drew so much traffic that he was sued by his neighbors.
Robbins asked his children if they would like to see a light show like this in their home. They shouted, “Yes!”
It took a few years, but in 2017 Robbins brought his first light show to Palo Alto.
His eldest daughter, Jillian, turned to him and said, “Wow, you said you’d do it and you did” — a moment Robbins cherishes.
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“So I think there are kind of life lessons there,” he said.
Preparing the offer is a complex process.
Three weeks before Thanksgiving, Robbins gets to work, disassembling strings of lights from six plastic containers and spending 12 hours over a few weekends getting everything ready. His wife holds a ladder for Robins as he climbs the roof to snowboard Charlie Brown and the other Peanuts characters. He also gets help from his daughter Krista, who wraps strings of lights around one of the large trees in the yard.
Musically synced holiday lights at Mark Robbins’ home in Palo Alto.
(Paul Kuroda / For The Times)
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The system is so complex that it needs a Google doc to map the plugs and Extension cords that connect 16 string lights and decorations to a main control box outside his house. An ethernet cable connects the console to a dedicated laptop computer inside the house that runs the light show.
A short cable runs from the laptop’s headphone jack to a nearby speaker, and the cables from the amplifier are connected to two speakers hanging outside under the eaves. Power is fed to the amp by a Roku Outdoor Smart Plug that sits on the sidewalk, where a lit-up sign invites passers-by to press a button on the plug to start the show in 15-minute increments.
One recent weeknight, neighbor Lisbeth Winarski was walking past the Robins’ house with her husband and dog, Stella, and said, “Oh, let’s push the button.” Red, white and green lights flashed as Mariah Carey sang, “I don’t want much Christmas, there’s only one thing I need…”
When Winarski was listening to music, a man walked past the light show. Winarski introduced herself, and the two noted how similar the man’s name was to her father’s.
“I think one of the most important things you can do in your civic life is bring people together and create a sense of community, so I’m always very grateful to them for doing that,” said Winarski, 70. .
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The joy of seeing people push the button extends inside the Robins’ home, too. Sometimes, when family members are watching a movie on their television, the Robbins’ visiting mother from New Jersey exclaims, “We’ve got a motive!”
Over the years, he’s added more songs to the mix. When he hears the Christmas song on the radio, he imagines how he programmed it on the dancing lights in his head. Sometimes, after a late-night programming session, he excitedly rushes outside at 1am and runs a demo (with the music turned down) to check his work.
Sometimes he is surprised how his hobby turned into a job.
“I would encourage people who have a hobby that others can appreciate to make an effort to get it in front of as many people as possible,” he said. “And who knows what will happen?”
On the same day as the story was published, Ecclesiastes I launched an investigation at Tessier-Lavigne’s research and seven years of alleged scientific misconduct detailed in the Stanford Daily story.
“It was absolutely amazing,” said Sam Catania, editor-in-chief of the Stanford Daily. “I can’t say I expected the board of trustees to act quickly.” But he said the launch of the investigation “has become just another news event for us.” Baker continued to cover the story, revealing that the photo could have been tampered with Additional papers Co-authored by Tessier-Lavigne. He also spoke about invitations to the rector get down and the Expanding the group of people which will investigate allegations of scientific misconduct. (You can read all of the Stanford Daily coverage here.)
On February 17, three days before the Polk Prize winners were announced, Baker posted another Huge story Debunking accusations that Tessier-Lavigne had falsified data in a 2009 paper that identified a possible cause of brain degeneration in Alzheimer’s patients.
Baker said his personal interaction with Tessier-Lavigne was brief. He reached out to the university’s president shortly after emailing him asking for comment on the story about the alleged Alzheimer’s data. I went up to him. I just said, “Hi,” and he said, “Oh yeah, yeah. I received your message. I look forward to being in touch. Im in a hurry.’
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“I started to say something,” Baker continued, “and he slammed his car door halfway through my sentence.” “Of course, he never came back to us. His lawyer did.”
Shortly after the Alzheimer’s story was published, Tessier-Lavigne sent a letter to Stanford faculty and staff Attacking the student newspaper’s reports as “full of lies”.
Tessier-Lavigne’s letter reinforced Baker’s conviction that his stories would never have been published if the Stanford Daily had not been an organization operating outside the control of the academic establishment. (The newspaper celebrates the 50th anniversary of its independence from the university this year.) “The stakes are very high,” Baker said. “The person we are writing about is literally responsible for all of us.”
Both the Stanford Daily reporter and editor-in-chief bash questions about the impact their investigation might have on Tessier-Lavin’s tenure as university president.
“We just want to report the facts and we want to get them right. That’s what’s most important to us,” Catania said. “You know, whatever happens, if at the end of the day we were fair, we were accurate, we were accurate. For me, that would be “mission accomplished” on the newspaper side.
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For his part, Baker said he just wanted to “know the truth about exactly what happened.” He added, “I try not to think too much about what’s going to happen based on all of this. The thing I’ve spent most of the time thinking about is making sure we get it right, making sure we get it as comprehensive as possible. I’m not responsible for passing judgment; people will get there.” Others come to their conclusions. So my only job here is just to go on and find out what’s really out there.”
despite their attempts In gaining fame and fortune on TV, it was in the kickboxing gym where the brothers really thrived. They attend Storm Gym in Luton, a well-equipped facility in an old warehouse on a commercial estate, under the tutelage of Emir Subasic, an ex-military kickboxer, who becomes close with them and their family.
The staff at the gym declined to comment on Andrew or Tristan, and the gym’s location was recently updatedRemoval Descriptions Andrew as “one of the most devastating fighters” and Tristan as “a war machine”.
Johal, the gym owner from Leicestershire, believed Andrew was a skilled kickboxer and admired the way he fought with his hand, a high-risk strategy that allows fighters to bob and weave quickly but exposes them to knockout risks.
Johal suspects that Andrew learned his knack for self-promotion during his years as a fighter. “Andrew was always a little bit controversial. Sometimes you have to be the bad cop,” Johal said, explaining that the big money and fights go to the loudest boxers.
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“Andrew learned that a long time ago. He always said things to get people to support them, to get noticed. Nothing like that,” Johal said as a person. He added that Andrew used to go to kickboxing forums on the internet and write controversial things to get attention for his matches.
Ibrahim Al-Bastati, the Dutch kickboxer who defeated Andrew and won the championship belt in 2016, told Mirror That alpha male personality is just a verb. He told the newspaper, “He’s lying to a lot of people, he’s not the person he says he is.” “I know him very well, Andrew and his brother Tristan. I’ve been talking to them all week before the fight doing interviews, and he’s a very kind person.”
Andrew also took a distinct approach to marketing his bouts with the combat press, Says An interviewer from Love 2 Fight, a combat sports game, in 2013 came from a mysterious land called Wudan and was trained by a character named Master Po. This story was later incorporated into Tate’s misogynist training materials, illustrated with elaborate manga-style cartoons, and adopted by his followers.
“His fights were selling themselves,” Johal said. “He literally called himself ‘the cobra.’ Because like a cobra, his right hand, straight from behind, would knock most people out.”
Both brothers are successful in the ring. Andrew won many world title fights and Tristan won two British titles. Although it was not a profitable business, it did bring in some money. Andrew finally gets a sports car, an Aston Martin DB9, when he wins £10,000 from a fight.
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“It was quite a strange thing because it was a one-bedroom apartment with an Aston Martin DB on the outside,” O’Halloran recalls. This led to the origin of Andrew’s famous nickname “Top G.” “We used to always say when we were younger, ‘What a better G’,” O’Halloran recalled. “The guy’s a big gangster here—he drives an Aston Martin.”
Of Chuck E. Cheese’s 600-plus locations worldwide, fewer than 50 still have the quarter-century-old “Studio C” design of animation electronics using these floppy disks. Other restaurants have a version of the show that uses contemporary technology, while some have no animation at all. (Ars Technica He has a story About Chuck E. Cheese’s floppy disk use with a more detailed breakdown of all the old technologies.)
Eventually, Chuck E. Cheese plans to phase out animation entirely and focus on new screen-based entertainment (plus a more retro approach: a living human in a mascot costume). fix was It was first announced in 2017but restaurant renovations are an ongoing process, and it may be a year or two before the last of the animatronics are scrapped.
Tom Persky is the owner floppydisk.com, the largest floppy disk provider still in existence. His business has a few weapons: You can buy blank disks through him or send old floppy disks to transfer to more modern storage media. Persky will also program discs for bulk order customers, and he confirmed to BuzzFeed News that Chuck E. Cheese was indeed a longtime customer of his. He said he was sad that he would lose the company as a customer.
As for why the restaurant still uses floppy disks, Persky told BuzzFeed News that the floppy technology, while outdated, is actually very reliable. “If you’re looking for something very stable, really impenetrable — it’s not internet-based, it’s not network-based,” Persky said. “She’s very elegant at what she does.”
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Chuck E. Cheese’s press reps confirmed the series’ use of floppy disks with BuzzFeed News. However, they were very careful about what other information they were willing to share, and after a few days they told us that the company would not be officially involved in this story.
However, an experienced Chuck E. Cheese employee, who asked not to be identified because he is not authorized to speak on behalf of the company, echoed Persky’s sentiments.
“The floppy disks work surprisingly well. The animation, lighting, and rendering sync data are all in the floppy disks,” the employee told BuzzFeed News. SD. But newer setups usually cause issues with things, and it’s easier to keep the old stuff running.”
Even after Chuck E. Cheese phases out floppy disks, they’ll likely still be in use for some time in other areas – such as medical devices. While the thought of this might make you nervous, Persky insisted it was a good thing. “Why don’t you use USB? Well, let’s just say your life depends on it,” he said. If you have a choice between a USB drive or a floppy disk, choose the floppy disk every-time.
“It’s one thing if your animated bear isn’t smiling when cued,” he continued. “It’s another matter if your medical device breaks down.”